House Martins on the Move

• 22 Sep 2008
• Tags: Tactics,

Earlier in the series, we joined up with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) to ask you for your sightings of House Martins. We were concerned by low numbers of House Martins this spring but following our survey it's clear that House Martins are still doing well in the UK. It seems they were just very late arriving back from Africa.

User comments

Lynda Weare
Oct 29th 2008. We saw approx 12 housemartins flying west of the Abbotsbury swannery. Is this unusually late for them? Thanks, Lynda LOCATION: 50.7451,-2.2659 DATE: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:25:19 UTC WOtM team: This is quite late, though not unusual. House Martins regularly stay well into October and each year there are November records. These could be local birds which have fledged late and so are feeding up in readiness for migration. Alternatively, they could be birds which bred farther north, possibly in Scandinavia. The real mystery is where they will spend the winter. Ornithologists still aren't sure where the millions of House Martins which breed in Europe overwinter. The money is on somewhere in west Africa, perhaps high over the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kirsty Smallwood
Its 3rd October and we have 2 nests with 2 housemartins in each, busily being fed by the parents, but surely its getting too late for them to fledge and get to Africa this year? Do they ever overwinter in this country? LOCATION: 51.1363,-2.6395 DATE: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 12:13:06 UTC

Mike Oliver
Housemartins seen 30th September 2008, Auchrannie, Arran LOCATION: 55.5892,-5.1855 DATE: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:04:53 UTC

M B R
Very concerned as although all the swallows seem to have gone there is still one nest of House Martins with young I have not seen the parents and wonder if they might have left their chicks behind ? I have a flypaper in the kitchen full of flies but can not envisage keeping them fed till next year or flying to Morocco perhaps ?? !! LOCATION: 49.0888,0.6921 DATE: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:11:20 GMT

Pam Reynolds
26 September.Each evening this week from about 6.35, I have stood in the garden for half an hour and watched the house martins circling, feeding and communicating with each other. They seem to appear from a south west direction and disappear slightly north of me in the wisps of cloud. Where they go during the day, I do not know; perhaps down to the coast at Exmouth, Sidmouth. There are up to 20 of them and clearly, they come back here to roost. I hope to have a few more evenings of them before their departureThe last bird to depart in 2007 was on 5 October. LOCATION: 50.9480,-3.1393 DATE: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:45:23 UTC

Melinda
Delighted that house martins have nested here on Suffolk for the first time - as others have said on the gable end of the roof. They are on their second brood but unlike in July when the place was buzzing with martins, just one pair are left busy trying to fledge their young. They seem to feed mostly in the afternoon and evening and I am hoping this settled spell will just be enough for them to fledge safely. LOCATION: 52.1874,1.0767 DATE: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:23:38 UTC

David Cohen
Yesterday evening, 23rd September, there were quite a few Martins overhead. Perhaps 20 or so. The sky was a stormy looking grey but the wind direction favourable for an assisted flight across the Channel from Littlehampton to France. LOCATION: 51.500000,-0.116700 DATE: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:59:49 UTC

Nick Marsh
We often have a house martin nest under our eaves that is used for more than one brood over the summer. This year the martins only appeared well into the summer and have only had one brood in the nest which has just fledged. The nest had to be sustantially rebuilt as earlier in the summer a pair of sparrows used the empty nest to raise a brood and by the time the young sparrows had fledged they'd pretty much wrecked the mud structure which had remained from last summer. Last summer 3 broods were raised in the nest - don't think it was the same adult pair though in each case. LOCATION: 52.4661,-1.1618 DATE: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:39:06 UTC

Andrew Carmichael
House martins over three weeks later than usual here, looks like nesting reasonably succesful but with small broods. The birds here don't seem to like the artificial nests or horizontal eave nesting sites, all going for the gable end location and not even alighting on artificial nests. Something a bit different was that these birds near me were travelling over 450 metres to collect mud. Usual quoted distance as a max was 200 metres. Still some families around but only 10 or so left now out of a population of around 150+ LOCATION: 53.716702,-0.333300 DATE: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:02:24 UTC

Val Parry
The house martins in the man made nest had a second clutch which were still in the nest at the beginning of Sept 08. The nest is on a gable roof looking directly out on to Cardigan Bay LOCATION: 53.0990,-4.2545 DATE: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:54:47 UTC

Michael Oliver
I was quite surprised to spot about 6 Housemartins flying over head at this time of year this far north. Seen on 21st September 2008 LOCATION: 55.8383,-4.2188 DATE: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:32:57 UTC

Lyn Edwards
I have seen very few Swifts this year, in comparison to previous years, but yesterday evening there was a very large flock over our local river, 'Ferring Rife'. There must have been 200+. They seemed to be wheeling around fairly aimlessly. It was very overcast and cloudy, and they seemed to be too high, under those conditions, to be feeding.Do Swifts congregate together before migrating for the winter?Best regards,Lyn Edwards LOCATION: 50.8012,-0.4257 DATE: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:15:12 GMT

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