Things you need to know about HOUSE MARTINS

There are fewer more welcome signs that summer is on its way than the arrival of swallows, swifts and house martins. They can sometimes be confused with each other so here is a side by side comparison, including the sand martin which also visits the UK. House martins have a wingspan of 26 to 29cm and short forked tails. Their heads, backs and wings appear black from a distance, although they shimmer with blue in the right light. Their undersides are creamy white and they also have a white rump.
House martins are agile flyers and catch their food on the wing, which consists entirely of flying insects and aphids.
When they return to the UK, which can be from early April onwards, they quickly get to work with breeding. Although they are monagous in that the same male and female will usually raise chicks together for multiple years, they are not very faithful and one study found that more than 3 quarters of nests contained chicks from more than one male. Traditionally house martins would have nested on cliffs but as their name alludes, these days they mostly nest on man made structures, particularly under the eaves of houses. Their nests are constructed out of up to 1000 small balls of clay which the parents diligently place to make an almost completely closed cup. Sometimes they will use the same nest in successive years and they will also use man made nests if they are available. Once the nest is complete it is lined with a thin layer of vegetation and feathers before four or five eggs are laid. The eggs are completely white and measure just under 2cm long. Both sexes incubate them for around 14 days and once they hatch, both parents bring a ready supply of food to the nest. The chicks take around 3 weeks to fledge, although once they leave the nest they may return for several days whilst their parents carry on feeding them. Gradually they will become more independent and at around 5 weeks old they will be completely self sufficient. Typically house martins will nest 2 times in a summer with more established pairs sometimes raising a third brood.
After breeding is complete, they start to gather in larger flocks before setting off southwards for the winter. They begin to leave from August although some birds remain well into October if the weather isn’t too harsh. Many times when I speak about bird numbers declining I do so based on research and haven’t noticed the decline so much myself, but with house martins even in my 32 years of life I have noticed a significant drop in their numbers. Since 1995 they have declined by more than 37% with around 480,000 pairs remaining. Its likely that at least some of this decline has been caused by the drastic drop in flying insects, prompted by changes in the way the countryside is managed. House martins live an average of 2 years but the oldest known bird survived for 7 years 1 month and 12 days. Here is one of the house martins calls.
#birds #birdwatching #nature
Some of the footage and images used in this video were obtained using creative commons licences, the originals can be found at:

[borisblade]

I miss seeing house Martin's nests on the side of houses there seemed to be many when I was younger but I see less today sadly

[Tim.Weaver]

This made me feel a bit sad as I haven't seen a house martin for ages, but I used to love seeing them in the 1970s and 80s when I lived in Canterbury and they were always flying above the streets.
After reading Tony Soper's Bird Table Book in the late 70s, I followed his instructions for making a fake nest using polyfilla, a kid's football, and some brown poster paint. When it had dried out, I stretched out of the bedroom window and attached it to the wall under the eaves. The birds ignored it that year, but next spring it was occupied by a pair of house martins and in subsequent years they built their own nest next door too.
Unfortunately, like so many bird species they're much rarer these days.

[Kevin-mxvi]

We have a small house martin colony of 4 pairs under the eaves of ours & the next door house. They've been coming every year since we bought the house & we're always delighted to see them. This year they were very late, though with the cold wet spring that's really no surprise. Usually they raise 2 broods, and did you know that the first brood help to feed the second one ? By the end of summer there are usually around 20 of them flying around. 😊
[Edit] Make that 5 pairs - a nest that was broken and unused for about 3 years has been repaired and is in use. 😊

[welshskies]

Thanks Liam. Imagine how house martins have declined in my 65 years! We have a few in my village but in nowhere near the numbers I can remember back in the 1960s and 70s.

[alanwayte]

I am 60 in my youth we had at least 10 pairs nesting in my parents cottage, and the sky was filled with them and Swifts, I now own my Parents cottage that is 300 years old, last year we had two nests, but there are so few swifts in particular it’s very sad, I remember when I passed my driving test in 1984 the car would be splattered with dead insects in summer, now it’s very rare, another massive decline is the lapwing, the fields use to have large flocks making the “Pee Wit” call, I can’t remember the last time I have even seem a Lapwing😢

[annipetratos]

Lots of these little guys in kefallonia Greece. People love them 🤍

[williamrobinson]

Encouraging such species as housemartens is definitely a matter for industrial farming practices to facilitate, I think.
Hoping fatherhood going well. Nice one Liam. 🌟👍

[gerrimilner]

there was a bank near me, on the Itchen test estuary, that was a sand martin nesting spot, they built a housing estate next to it. quite honestly i last walked there in 2004 and haven't had the heart to go back, i would rather them darting about doing their thing in my memory, than face what has likely happened

[Alan.n]

Thanks Liam, for interesting commentary on house martins. Always amazed by their migrations. Nice one! 😊 👍

[SlowLivingSligo]

Beautiful little birds and a great video. Many thanks ❤

[moomin]

Love that you posted this right as I came inside after watching some house martins.
Great timing!

[mattgoodchild]

A beautiful video about a beautiful bird
Nice one Liam thank you 👍🏼🍻

[christrella]

Our Purple Martins are colony bird house nesters. Very informative. Congratulations.

[nickwebb]

Thanks for another informational video Liam 🙏

[PhilipMurphyExtra]

Always lovely to have wildlife content on YouTube

[Mgh-r]

Dear liam ❤❤❤❤❤ dear new father ❤❤❤❤ hi and welcome back and thanks ❤❤❤❤

[missapippin]

Thank you Liam. I hope all is going well with your baby girl. What an interesting video again. It shows you that what’s going on in the countryside has a follow on affect. Take care. ❤

[Compo]

Cool 😎 video Liam …. Last year I was over the moon as we had a nesting pair of house martins in our field shelter. Unfortunately I had to put a new roof on the shelter this year but I haven’t seen the birds return as yet. I anticipate and hope they will still though, and have put some nest support ledges in the roof voids to help encourage them. Anyway fingers crossed and thanks again for a really cool video . PS. Hope fatherhood is going well and that one day your tell “nearly everything we want to know” about it 😁👍🙏

[paulsanderson]

Good video Liam. Esp on house martins. As I had the best of the house martins playing on cd .
See you on your next adventure

[darrelltregear]

I used to watch them flying as kid and I used to imagine them has mini jet fighter in a dog fight.