The swallows have gone. No more flashing, swooping, soaring arrow shapes over the twin lakes at the Waterworks Reserve.
I feel as empty as the skies, which are also clear of a swallow cousin, tree martins.
The swallows and martins have left for their wintering grounds on the mainland, flying across Bass Strait to Victoria and possibly as far north as Queensland, where warmer temperatures over the winter months will ensure a supply of their flying insect food.
It seemed like only yesterday I had watched baby swallows balancing precariously on the top strands of a wire fence. They appeared awkward, ungainly as they thrust their bodies upwards and sideways in jerky movement to maintain a centre of gravity, ensuring they did not fall off the wire.
All the while their parents hovered about them, bringing food and urging them to take wing, teaching them the skills of flight.
The fluffy young, outsized Donald Duck beaks indicating their age, had managed to flutter from their mud-cup nest in the rafters of a BBQ hut at the reserve to the fence bordering the upper of the two lakes.
When it came to flight they still had much to learn, as demonstrated by their streamlined, long-tailed parents hawking insects over the lakes, and diving to take a sip of water in a spill of wings and droplets.
Two young swallows, sometimes three, perched on a strand of wire. Each year I look for them in mid-summer, urging them on in their flying lessons, standing guard as their parents do when the collared sparrowhawk, seeing their vulnerability, comes looking for a quick and easy meal.
Seeing the young fly with confidence for the first time I can relax, the anxiety of the nesting season over for both parents and the observer.
My interest in the Waterworks swallows has spanned 20 years and I always make daily trips to the reserve at the start of spring, expecting their arrival. They usually turn up during the first weekend of September, although it can be earlier or later by a few days depending on the weather.
They seem to live on a wing and a prayer for the whole summer and I am drawn to their industriousness, and sometimes plight when the nesting routine is disturbed by either humans, or predators including not just the sparrowhawk but forest ravens.
This season, though, I was disappointed to discover for a second year that the swallows had been disturbed at the BBQ hut. They finally succeeded last year but my fears the swallows might not breed this year were allayed when they nested instead under a pier jutting into the lower lake. They produced three young.
Swallows always return to successful nesting sites so, although I lament the swallows’ departure in autumn, I live in hope during the dark days of winter that they will return to herald spring once again in September.