Migrating Barn Swallows

I first started to notice that the swallows were starting to migrate more than a month ago, and there are still swallows around. This morning, there were at least 50 Barn Swallows (Rauchschwalbe) feeding over the River Inn in Innsbruck. But interestingly, the Barn Swallows are already starting to appear in Bloemfontein, South Africa. That means that the swallow migration is currently spread out over at least:

8 615 km

wow. and from bird ringing studies, we know that Barn Swallows that move through Germany and Austria go at least to Bloemfontein. Bloem' is in the very heart of South Africa and has a massive Barn Swallow roost where millions gather just before the northward migration at the end of the austral summer. Who knows, maybe some of our summer visitors are there right now.