Another Bird Blog: Swallows And Martins

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Swallows And Martins

There's no ecaping the sport today. It's granddaughter Olivia's school Sports Day and all good innocent fun. So no birding until tomorrow for me. In the meantime here's a few pictures of Swallows and House Martins from Pilling on Monday afternoon.

Not much to report from a quick visit. A build of post-breeding Lapwings at 60+, and similarly with Curlews at more than 40. Three Grey Plovers made an appearance over the shore where 7 Eider ducks sat out the incoming tide. The usual Kestrels now feeding quite large young and a Tawny Owl at Fluke Hall.

At Pilling Water I found a family of Swallows so spent a while with them. There were 2 adults and 4 recently fledged youngsters, the juveniles reluctant to explore while the adults kept returning with food.

Barn Swallow

House Martins do not often settle on the ground but have to do so when collecting material to construct their nests. The incoming tide left patches of muddy sand, an ideal buiding material for House Martins to shore up their mud dwellings. Everywhere is pretty dry at the moment with not many puddles around so the House Martins must have travelled a good 800 metres or more from their nests in Pilling village to collect the sticky stuff.

House Martins sometimes nest on ships. A pair once nested on board a ship travelling eight times a day between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden. The crossing between the two ports was 15 miles long.