Another Bird Blog: Sand Martin Hat Trick

Friday, April 21, 2023

Sand Martin Hat Trick

We have three Sand Martin recoveries in one week. This unprecedented glut of news began on Monday after a visit to the Sand Martin colony out Cockerham way. We knew that roughly 100-130 Sand Martins have been seen at the colony following our three recent visits, two visits to count followed by one for catching purposes.

Monday looked to be the best morning of zero wind and minimal sun, the lack of bright sunshine ideal for making mist nets mostly invisible. It’s early season when Sand Martins are around in numbers but not necessarily glued to their nest holes, males or females.

Many are on their way further north than Lancashire, into Cumbria and as far as the north of Scotland. Our 10% or thereabouts catch of 15 was pretty good with the preponderance of females (10) also pointing to the possibility that females were more intent on gaining access to last year's nest holes than wayward dilly dallying males.

Sand Martins' Colony

The fifteen included a recapture from July 2022 and also a “control” a ring number not ours but from elsewhere, AAX9650. On Thursday came the news that AAX9650 had been ringed on 14 April 2023 at Woolston Eyes, Warrington, Cheshire almost directly 180 degrees south of Cockerham.

Sand Martin

And then came the second piece of news that another Sand Martin, ALJ4781 a "3J", code for a very young bird, born at Cockerham in 2021 and ringed on 5 June 2021 was recaptured on the way back to North West England. This second one was recaptured on 6 April 2023, also at Woolston Eyes, Warrington. There is no record as to where this bird was during 2022 but safe to assume it was somewhere in North West England where it evaded capture by bird ringers.

The hat trick of Sand Martin news emerged with ALP8530 another 3J ringed at Cockerham on 30 June 2022 and recaptured at Woolston Eyes on 13 April 2023. During the first two weeks of April counts of Sand Martins at Woolston had reached over 350 using the area to feed and to roost before continuing their northward migration.

The Merseyside Ringing Group of Woolston Eyes took good advantage of the high counts of Sand Martins during those first two weeks of April. I'm pretty sure their catches included many new ones and probably ones ringed elsewhere in the UK and probably ones with French rings.