Champagne flutes
| Flora Gregory |
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3
Sun 9 Jun, 19:32 Thank you for suggestions re flutes everyone. Kate - house martins arrived late this year (as did swifts and swallows) and after they thoroughly inspected the locality they are back at the Rose and Crown and rebuilding their old nests and using new nesting cups put up by the wonderful guys at the Fire Station. It takes house martins 2-3 weeks to build their beautiful nests, so we think that these cups are the way forward. Fingers crossed they have a successful breeding season this year. You say nesting boxes ? This is what we are using at the Rosie, https://housemartinconservation.com/artificial-nests built by Paul Stevens. There is also advice as to where to put them on this link. We are hoping to slowly build up the colony at the Rosie and along Church/Market/Sheep street. John at the Old Butchers Shop is also using a caller, as house martins tried to build nests under his very tall eves last year and we have put a couple of nesting cups there too. It's a great place for them, so fingers crossed. Like swifts and swallows, house martins are sociable birds and like to be in the company of each other, and the recommendation is to build out from where we still have birds nesting. Thanks to Louise Spicer, I have seen a log of all the nesting sites in Charlbury, and there were hundreds. Plastic sofit boards, nests being knocked down by humans and other habitat challenges, climate change, a drop in insect numbers, and a perilous journey may all be contributing factors re the plummeting numbers of the birds, they have dropped by 65% in the last 40 years and they are now amber listed. We are always interested to hear of swift/swallow/house martin nesting sites around Charlbury. charlburywildlifesociety@gmail.com Thank you ! |