Another Brick

Another brick for the wall here! This house martin with his beakful of oozing, thick, wet mud was ferrying his cargo rapidly from one side of the canal to the other. Our spring visitors all the way from Africa were getting ready to breed.

The house where I'd been watching the colony start building their nests was beavering away at a pace ready for a large family. They feed on the wing and this is an ideal spot as there are a lot of insects and beetles in the vicinity of the water. This is an unusual sight for a house martin as they very rarely go to ground except for this mud collection exercise for house building as seen here with his beak really stuck in!

There was a swan family on the canal and half a dozen cygnets looking very cute aaaaahh. For your own good I'm not posting up all the cute shots as there really is a limit to the amount of cuteness blippers can take!

Stickier mud in LARGE