Thanks for the update.

Beautiful nest.
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I wonder about the white feathers and what bird they came from?

Do they use the all white feathers each time they nest?

Lara, some birds pluck their own feathers for nest lining. But I don't know if swallows do that. There is typically also a post-nuptial moult of many types of birds. And perhaps this is a source of some feathers too.

They may find seagull or duck feathers too.
Here is an interesting photo of hand offering to a swallow of feathers for her nest!


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And a video of hand picking feathers:

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and this from feathers on the ground:

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I am encouraged by this video. We often find many white feathers upNorth on the shore. I am going to gather these smaller ones dropped by the gulls and geese, bring them back and put them in
my cotton dispenser and see what happens next spring.
We used to have many swallows nesting under the tunnels along our creek...but I haven't seen them lately.
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wow, very interesting.
Thanks for posting those.

I must say that swallows look really pretty in flight.

They are really FAST too. We used to have them all the time, and they lived under the bridges along with creek where the roads go over them...but then there was huge construction on a new sewer system and big machines scared them away.

You could stand in the street, and they would be zooming overhead eating bugs like mosquitoes etc. Our tree cover is very high (old oaks), so the street was like a tunnel for them. They remind me of the bats upNorth, which are also very fast when they swoop down to catch mosquitoes. Only the bats come closer to your head than the swallows do.
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This is a woods where we live...a little oasis of woods in a busy city. I wonder how the small feathers would do here. Not much in the way of sources available like on farmlands etc.
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They are wonderful flyers, skilful enough to snatch insects out of the air. I love to watch them over parks and playing fields, they fly on e to two feet above the grass feeding on insects that have been disturbed by people walking over the grass.

You must have different species of bats to us, ours never come close - I also like watching bats, at this time of year we get a good few in the twilight.

So what has been happening on the nest this week ?, well not much really, she has just been sitting incubating her little eggs for most of the time, bit boring really.

But then today I decided to try and get a decent picture which was more exciting than you could possibly imagine - needed to get hidden in the loft space above the garage, and getting there with my knackered back and no ladders (due to the swallows nesting on them) was about as exciting as it get these days
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(I do appreciate I joined this forum to discuss my falling to bits spine, but chatting about birds i guess is far more therapeutic)

Anyway - here she is on the nest

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And here is her mate waiting patiently outside on the lamppost -

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I really appreciate your posting the photos.

... as long as you don't injure your spine more in doing so!
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Thanks

Good question and I don't really know - Mrs D is correct that some birds pluck some of their own feathers however I don't think Swallows do this, I have seen them flying back to the nest carrying feathers which sort of suggests they are sourcing them rather than using their own. (presumably if they were using their own they would do so at the nest site ?)

Why white? I have looked at some old nests in the garage and some old photographs from previous years and indeed the feathers used are predominately white, my only guess for this may be white feathers are easier to find, whilst out with the dog this week I have taken notice of feathers I have spotted lying on the ground and they have virtually all been white, I guess the more camouflaged ones are just to difficult to see.