A long wait for House Martins is over! (1 Viewer)

[DavidJJones]

Many years ago (>12 years) I made and put up a trio of artificial martin nestboxes. At that time there were a number of pairs of House Martins nesting along our road but the boxes failed to attract them. Over the years the number of Martins nesting near us dwindled until I didn't see any nesting in the road earlier this year. My boxes had failed in their primary task, although they were used by Sparrows for roosting (although not nesting).

That disappointment has now been cleared away! I have just spent nearly three weeks on holiday in Cornwall, and in our absence it seems that a pair of House Martins have at last decided to try out one of the boxes.

Having given up hope for another year I didn't bother to look at the boxes since our return last week, but this morning Sheila (my better half) caught sight of something with white on it flash past a bedroom window below the boxes. A quick look outside confirmed the tell-tale lumps of mud used to make the entrance smaller. Setting up a video camera let us confirm that there are a pair of birds, with one in residence swapping places with its partner every-so-often - Brilliant!!!!

It's been a long, long wait but worth it, although I am a bit surprised to see this happening this late in the year. Once in a while we see a wing appear at the entrance as though the bird inside is turning around, or turning the eggs perhaps??

I'll be posting an update when something different happens, as well as including photographs in my garden diaries (pictures of the boxes as well as rather poor cctv images of the birds are in today's entry -10 August)

 

[Elizabeth Bigg]

David - that's good news! I thought this seemed rather late in the year, but having looked at my books yet again (they are now in a heap by my computer, because I've referred to them so often in the last few days) it seems very promising. I'm off now right now to look at your website (it's in my Favourites of course)!

 

[david2004]

Wow! Lucky you! That reminds me actually...
I once stayed at B and B - the couple who owned it had these boxes and had nesting house martins. They gave me the phone number of the makers and i bought a double one. It has been up for 4 years, and martins nest all over my housing estate (some very near me), and feed above and around my house but none nested there.
This year however, we came back from a weekend away and i saw a blue tit go in! i was confused but pleasantly surprised as i had seen investigating birds but never dreamed they'd nest there. to my dad's disbelief they did nest, and had 8 healthy chicks which feed at the bird table regularly. i even have video footage - must get some stills sometime!

 

[orielmitchell]

Hi David,
Can you remember how you made the artificial martin houses?
Before we bought our house a couple of years ago the owner pulled down the 9 nests and put up a cord to prevent new ones from being built. After a couple of weeks of constant housemartin dive bombing we were so distressed that we cut down the cord but it must have been too late for them to build homes last year.
This year one couple constructed a nest but it must have been too small because two chicks fell out featherless and then another one about a week later that I managed to rear and send back to the skies last weekend. The next day about 50 house martins came to inspect the nest.
I would not really like a repeat next year, I don't mind the muck but I don't like the
dead chicks so maybe if we start some houses large enough the birds could just add the finishing touches like yours did.
Our house has plastered cement exterieur with about 50cm wooden overhang roof on all 4 sides but the martins seem to prefer the south and the north.
Oriel

 

[DavidJJones]

Hello Oriel,

I had a feeling someone would ask that question, so here goes (memory permitting!)….

1 – I made an internal mould by screwing together at right angles two short pieces of 6x1 timber and then fashioning some cement into the shape of the nest as recommended by the BTO (Internal dimensions 70mm high, 120mm wide at the back, 90mm deep) with an extension at the front to provide the entrance shape (60mm wide, 25mm deep).

2 - Once the cement had dried I used coarse fibreglass matting and resin mixed with sawdust to create a thin shell with flanges at the sides and back for fixing. When set, it was removed, edges trimmed and the worst of the roughness removed.

3 - Then I mixed up dried soil (clay based in my garden) sawdust and cement, added water and PVA adhesive to make a paste that I used to cover both interior and exterior surfaces with a couple of coats, pressing it into all the small gaps that remained in the matting.

The BTO also suggests making the nests out of Papier Mache or a cement/sawdust mixture in the proportion 2:7 (The sawdust has to be soaked overnight in a wetting agent and then allowed to dry before use). I decided that using fibreglass would give a stronger result.

As it happened, the entrance on one of my nests was big enough to allow House Sparrows to enter, but although they have roosted in it I have never seen them use it for nesting. It has been interesting to see how the Martins have modified the entrance. I wonder if it would have been better if I had made the original entrances much larger. Perhaps this would have made them less attractive to the sparrows while still providing a substantial start for the Martins to complete.

Following what you say about them preferring the North or South facing walls, my boxes face East and I have a North facing wall (no South-facing wall) but it only has one corner with sufficient overhang– perhaps I shall try putting a half-made nest there for next year.

As for ‘my’ House Martins, I’m still waiting for a change in behaviour that indicates that hatching has taken place. The pair continues to swap shifts at irregular intervals throughout the day. One thing I haven’t been able to establish is what the male does at night. Do both birds stay in the box (they do spend short periods together in there during the day), or does he roost elsewhere?

 

[orielmitchell]

Hello Oriel,

I had a feeling someone would ask that question, so here goes (memory permitting!)….

1 – I made an internal mould by screwing together at right angles two short pieces of 6x1 timber and then fashioning some cement into the shape of the nest as recommended by the BTO (Internal dimensions 70mm high, 120mm wide at the back, 90mm deep) with an extension at the front to provide the entrance shape (60mm wide, 25mm deep).

2 - Once the cement had dried I used coarse fibreglass matting and resin mixed with sawdust to create a thin shell with flanges at the sides and back for fixing. When set, it was removed, edges trimmed and the worst of the roughness removed.

3 - Then I mixed up dried soil (clay based in my garden) sawdust and cement, added water and PVA adhesive to make a paste that I used to cover both interior and exterior surfaces with a couple of coats, pressing it into all the small gaps that remained in the matting.

The BTO also suggests making the nests out of Papier Mache or a cement/sawdust mixture in the proportion 2:7 (The sawdust has to be soaked overnight in a wetting agent and then allowed to dry before use). I decided that using fibreglass would give a stronger result.

As it happened, the entrance on one of my nests was big enough to allow House Sparrows to enter, but although they have roosted in it I have never seen them use it for nesting. It has been interesting to see how the Martins have modified the entrance. I wonder if it would have been better if I had made the original entrances much larger. Perhaps this would have made them less attractive to the sparrows while still providing a substantial start for the Martins to complete.

Following what you say about them preferring the North or South facing walls, my boxes face East and I have a North facing wall (no South-facing wall) but it only has one corner with sufficient overhang– perhaps I shall try putting a half-made nest there for next year.

As for ‘my’ House Martins, I’m still waiting for a change in behaviour that indicates that hatching has taken place. The pair continues to swap shifts at irregular intervals throughout the day. One thing I haven’t been able to establish is what the male does at night. Do both birds stay in the box (they do spend short periods together in there during the day), or does he roost elsewhere?

Another forum member, Jos Stratford told me that they might roost in reedbeds like swallows do.
That would fit for my lot because they all head off down towards the river less than half a mile away. Thanks for the house plans, it sounds a little bit tricky but maybe during the winter when the garden is less inviting I'll have a go.
Oriel

 

[DavidJJones]

Another forum member, Jos Stratford told me that they might roost in reedbeds like swallows do.
That would fit for my lot because they all head off down towards the river less than half a mile away. Thanks for the house plans, it sounds a little bit tricky but maybe during the winter when the garden is less inviting I'll have a go.
Oriel

Thanks for that Oriel. We have a large lake nearby and a small nature reserve with a large pond with reeds etc, so perhaps the local males go to one of those. I'm already planning the posibility of, by next year, having set up one of the nests to view the contents via a cctv camera in my loft so that I can see for myself what happens there at night!

As for making the nests, I promise you it's not too bad. Once you have made the internal mould the rest can be done at your leisure. For me, looking out of the window and seeing the Martins flying in and out makes it all worthwhile, despite the long wait.

 

[DavidJJones]

...... Thanks for the house plans, it sounds a little bit tricky but maybe during the winter when the garden is less inviting I'll have a go.
Oriel

Oriel,

This afternoon I visited my local 'Pets at Home' store to get some Sparrow food, and I noticed that they had ready-made House Martin nests (concrete & sawdust) from the RSPB for around £15.

I was interested to see that the nest was over 1cm thick and the entrance was more a rectangle than a semicircle, which is rather like the modification made to my box by the martins.

When I got home I had a look at the RSPB website and found a page of instructions for making your own. It's worth having a look at - you'll find it at

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/whatyoucando/attracthousemartins/make_a_nest.asp

 

[Nina P]

David, I have just recently got housemartins arrived, I had a pair lookinto my new boxes that we put up this spring, but they dissappeared, never to be seen again, but we did have a Hobby linger, they decided to nest in the trees behind my house, and no-one in the street had a single martin nest this year! Now the Hobby has moved on the housemartins have appeared, and twenty of them landed overnight and rested the night in my two semi detached boxes, now we have a pair acting like they may yet have a brood, so I hope you have the same luck.

 

[DavidJJones]

Hello Nina,
It's hardly the best weather for a bird to bring up a young family, but it looks as though my HM's have started feeding their chicks. Today I've seen them dumping faecal sacs out of the nest. Judging by a count of these on my porch roof (and watching 4Hrs of video from today) I'm guessing the chicks may have hatched on Friday or Saturday.

I'm used to watching the Blue Tits, Great Tits and Robins in my garden taking the sacs well away from their nests, so its quite different to see the HM's just pop them out of the nest in this way.

With fledging occuring some 19-25 days later we will be well into September (second week) before they leave the nest. After that, how long will it take them to prepare for their journey south?

 

[DavidJJones]

How old are my House Martin chicks?

As promised, an update on the progress of the House Martin family.

Over the last two days I have spent time watching the nest and taking photographs from a scaffolding tower. The chicks have now reached the stage where they are able to reverse their rear ends out of the entrance to drop faecal sacs onto the porch roof (stainless steel, so there should be no problem when I clean it!) above our front door.

The parents are bringing food to the nest at intervals of around 4-5 minutes, except when a Sparrow Hawk is patrolling overhead, when they disappear from the patch of sky over the neighbourhood.

For anyone who is interested, there are some photographs on my website, in the garden diary entries for the last two days. If you look, perhaps someone can give me some idea of how old the chicks are, based on the size of their tail feathers.

 

[DavidJJones]

Another House Martin update

Today I saw chicks looking out for the first time, and I have managed to get my first photographs of feeding taking place - they are in my diary entry for today (4 Sept).

Feeding is being disrupted at intervals through the day by the presence of a Sparrowhawk. When it attacked the Sparrows in my garden, the noise of the sparrows seemed to attract the local Martins to get involved by flying low over the house and garden, making a lot of noise. When the attack was over, more than twenty minutes passed before any more food was brought to the nest. A similar time gap occured when the hawk took advantage of the sunny conditions to soar high up above our road.

 

[walwyn]

Good news on getting the House Martins. After last year when they didn't turn up here until the end off June we got batch early this year (end of April):
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=5907

The two nests expanded to 5 on the south side of the house and each raised two broods this year. All of the Martins left the village about 4 weeks ago.

 

[Nina P]

to update the HM's here I now have two boxes showing signs of activity, and a regular cluster of at least twenty birds feeding well and milling about, I think I now have two nests with late broods happening but I have been away for over a week, but the activity is looking hopeful, but no little heads peeping out just one adult! They must be a fortnight behind yours, so lets hope, eh?

 

[walwyn]

Good news Nina. Hope the weather holds up so that they can fledge any young. We have had a few martins over the village in the last few days. I counted about 8 last night, probably northern birds moving south.They don't seem to have taken up residence in the vacated nests though.

 

[Nina P]

It is rather gusty winds at present but they are still milling about and there are plenty of flies, (the farmer has been spreading muck over the fields across the road) Smells very strong but will encourage the flies the martins will need, I have been fly batting plenty as they do come into the house even with doors and windows closed...... How on earth do they enter the home?

 

[DavidJJones]

Hi again, Nina and Walwyn

Another update on my Martins - the chicks are now spenting a lot of time looking out of the box. The frustration is that only two ever appear at one time so I have no idea how many are actually in the nest.

This morning I spent an hour up the tower watching them, as it was fascinating to watch their reactions every time a fly zoomed past. Both heads would move in unison as they tracked its progress - obviously good practice for when they fledge later this week.

For anyone who wants to take a look, I've updated my garden diary with some of the photographs taken this morning.

We have had some 20+ adults flying in the local area over the last week, and last Sunday they were joined briefly by a larger group for a very noisy few minutes before the visitors moved on.

Cheers,

David Jones
Garden wildlife diaries at http://www.mybitoftheplanet.com

 

[DavidJJones]

A confused House Martin update

House Martin update for 15 Sept:-

A confusing day. As expected, the two chicks fledged this morning around 9am. That's it I thought, and after a short pause I went out for the morning. I get back home around 1.30pm to find a chick being fed in the nest, and it remained there for the rest of the day, getting a lot of attention.

I checked video recordings that I had made and found that after the chicks had left this morning nothing went to the nest until 1pm. Then an adult checked it out, left and then an adult entered again, followed by a chick (sorry, fledgling) and another adult that stayed perched outside. It was almost as though the youngster was being escorted back to the nest!

Perhaps it will leave tomorrow.... (the videos will be recording again)

 

[walwyn]

Ours tend to come back for a few days after fledging. Eventually the parents chase them off as they settle down to start another brood.

 

[DavidJJones]

It doesn't seem to be a case of chasing here. There were three roosting in the nest again last night, one of the fledglings and two adults - or could one or both be immature birds from an earlier brood?

It was the youngster that seemed most eager to leave this morning, chirping away at the entrance before the others showed signs of wanting to go. They finally left together just before 9am.