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A Single Swallow: Following an Epic Journey from South Africa to South Wales

The book's research origin was Angela Turner's The Barn Swallow (Poyser, 2006): the comprehensive account of what is known about the bird. It suggested that very few facts about the northerly migration of barn swallows were established. By cross-reference with current hirundine research (e.g The Migration Atlas Chris Wernham et al Helm 2002) it became clear that such data as existed on the return routes of barn swallows was arbitrary, dependent on the recoveries of rings from casualties. Moreover, no comparative work on the birds' cultural status with the many different human groups living along their path had been published. My method was to link sites of known and likely swallow activity in order to discover and record their local identities, assembling portfolios of swallow names, myths, superstitions and associations from dozens of different groups in 13 countries across two continents. I was fascinated by notions of possession, territory, home and migration in different cultural contexts, all given an axis of comparison by the birds' migration. Human and avian migration routes being similar - primarily subject to topographic pressure - the research also threw startling light on the efficacy, or otherwise, of political frontiers, regarded by the majority of interviewees, from southern Africa to northern Europe, as problematic, if not nonsensical. The book is the direct product of two years' work and the indirect consequence of a decade-long engagement with questions of home and belonging, and the way in which contact with the natural world salves and answers human physical dislocation and spiritual dissonance. Angela Turner, the EURING swallow project, Birdlife Botswana and Rick Nuttall, Director of the National Museum, Bloemfontein, were key collaborators at the planning stage.