House Martin ( Delichon urbicum )

More or less back to normal apart from tiring quickly.

30 Days wild day 18.  Many years ago we used to get three or four natural House Martin nests on the house.  The numbers dwindled and eventually stopped.  Hardly surprising as the UK population of this interesting little bird is now about a quarter of what it was in the middle 80s.

About 5 years ago we started to get a single nest again.  The natural nests gave a couple of problems.  The first was that over winter they had a tendency to start to disintegrate with one of two results.  Either the entrance became big enough for the Sparrows to grab the nest or the birds had a lot of repairing to do leaving us worrying about whether the new would hold to the old with a full clutch of chicks inside.

Last year we solved the problem, artificial nests.  This year there has been a little alteration to the nest.  They clearly think the opening is too large as you can see they have closed it up a bit more.  Also, the second box is occupied.  One suggestion for the collapse of the population is lack of nest sites, artificial nests may help to relieve this.