House Martin
Delichon urbicum
About
House Martins are small birds with a glossy blue-black upper and pure white under parts. They have a distinctive white rump with a short forked tail. They are smaller than Swifts and Swallows with a plumper body and have shorter, straighter wings.
House Martins are most active in the morning and evenings. They spend much of their time in flight, collecting insect prey. They zoom around at mid-height, usually in flocks, coming down low over water.
The bird's mud nest is usually located below the eaves of buildings. These intricate mud nests take days to build and are often returned to and used in following years. They lay two broods on average each summer.
They can often be seen in towns and villages, as well as by wetlands and lakes. They are summer migrants, arriving in April and leaving in October, they spend their winters in Africa.
Conservation status
Although still numerous and widespread, recent moderate declines put them on the UK Red List of Birds and Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
The reasons causing this decline are not well understood, although birds that build nests on PVC as opposed to brick, concrete or wood have much lower breeding success, as their nests are more likely to collapse.
A Letter to My New Neighbours
New Summer neighbours, you moved in early one morning fluttering, body thrumming, bearing gifts of sunlight and song, sunlight and song. When sun rises, bringing morning along with it, you rise too, as ready for today as for yesterday and the day before that, and the one before that.
You take to skies in twos, threes, fours making you-shaped shadows sliding across frosted-glass windows. And off. Swooping, twirling, pirouetting, climbing, soaring. Wings spread wide, rising, arcing, diving. Mid-air glideeeeeeeeeeeeeee
You are all day, twittering, chittering, chattering, whistling, calling, calling, calling, calling. All day, gliding, swooping, soaring, swirling, falling, falling, falling, falling.
Long sips in shallow waters, swaying branches, rustling leaves, slicing through summer skies. When day is done and night has come you and the day’s heat slip beneath eaves in twos, threes, fours making you-shaped shadows that slide across frosted-glass windows making this house home, home, home, home.
Length: 94 seconds
Poem: Yvonne Battle-Fenton
Read by: Yvonne Battle-Fenton
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