This is my first blog and come on the occasion of my imminent departure for Buenos Aires and the BirdLife International World Conference. The project is co-sponsored by BirdLife and I am speaking to an audience made up of delegates from its 100 partner organisations. Our goal is to broadcast the Birds and People project as far as possible to achieve a truly global spread of contributions.

Publicity has been a major priority and on returning from Buenos Aires we have a feature on the BBC Radio Four’s World on the Move series about. (Perhaps tune in next week. I’ll give you the time and date when they are finalised.) Swallows are among the most cherished of bird worldwide and it is extraordinary to see how responses span continents and millennia.

They were harbingers of spring for the ancient Greeks, just as they serve much the same role in modern China. In fact one community, a rural hill community called the Miao of Ghizou province specifically shape their agricultural year, based on a weather prophesy derived from the date of the swallows’ return. The birds breed inside Miao houses and they note the exact time of their reappearance in spring. From this comes a prediction of the coming summer weather and a date to begin sowing their rice paddies.

Though modern suburban USA couldn’t perhaps seem more different, Americans share the apparently universal love of swallows and martins. In fact if anything their attachments are even more profound. It is estimated a million people in North America put out martin houses for the purple martin and the entire population of this bird east of the Rockies now nests in man-made structures. If you have stories or experience of any of these themes then we would love to hear from you.