The 2022 Nesting season is winding down.  At the time of this writing (the second week of Aug 2022), the only colony remaining with active nests is the colony at Simon’s Rock.  It peaked out with 123 active and or occupied nests before I was sidelined for a few weeks with COVID.  By the time I returned to the colony around the last 2 weeks of June, some nests had already fledged young and the count of active nests at that point was around 79.  That meant the fledging time for the colony was between June 20-July 5.  This Season the House Sparrow competition was practically non existent at both Simon’s Rock and another colony at a farm in Cheshire MA.  As it turned out, both sites had each hosted a nesting pair of American Kestrels, who apparently found house sparrows relatively easy to catch.  This meant that the cliff swallows had a very successful nesting season overall.