Dear Readers, there used to be lots of nesting sites for House Martins in our rural towns and villages, and even in our more urban areas. My Aunt Hilary used to have about a dozen nests under her eaves in her house in Broadway, Somerset, which she allowed to stay with relatively good grace, in spite of the ‘mess’. And this house, in Milborne St Andrew where Mum and Dad used to live, surely wins an award for the highest number of nests on one house ever…

But alas, the ‘little orcas’ that I love so much are, like the swift, suffering from a multitude of problems – not enough insects, not enough places to nest, degradation of the habitats both where they used to overwinter and where they stop off en route. The birds use mud for their nests, and one of the loveliest sights in Obergurgl in Austria, where I usually holiday every year, is the House Martins swooping down to collect mud from a puddle, then taking it ‘home’ to one of the chalets with their convenient over-hanging eaves to make some repairs.

Mother House Martin feeding her young (Photo by By Michael Palmer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37001960)

One reason posited by the British Trust for Ornithology for the fall in House Martin numbers is the use of PVC in house building. Nests built on PVC facings are much more likely to fall off than those built on wood or brick. Overall, the BTO estimates that there has been a 44% decline in numbers between 1995 and 2022.

Photo by By Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40871453

House Martins appear to mate for life but as in so many cases, this is not as straightforward as it may appear. Up to 15% of nestlings who were genetically tested have a father that isn’t the ‘official’ mate. Apparently, the male guards the female very closely when she’s incubating the eggs and he only has her to feed, but as the chicks hatch and things get a bit more hectic, unpaired males will often sneak in for a quick liaison. It’s usually the youngest chick who has a different father, and this is probably why.

Photo by By Claus Ableiter – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2588978

Fortunately, House Martins are classified as ‘least concern’ from a conservation point of view across their very wide range. But it seems awful that, here in the UK, we’re losing our birds at such a rate, and it’s doubly terrible that it’s happened on our watch, if you’re in your sixties like me. We can all do our bit for sure, and I have no intention of despairing, though sometimes I feel like it. Let’s bin the pesticides, put up nest boxes, and do whatever we can to keep, and hopefully increase, what we have. Before it’s gone.