Category

Artificial nest cups
Declining passage of House Martins The passage of House Martins (HM) seems to have tailed off dramatically in this part of the Cévennes mountains (St Martial, 30440, Gard). This is not too far from the Department of Herault (34) which borders the Mediterranean. In previous years exhausted HMs arrived between 14-26 August, but none at...
2022/23 (Phase 1) Summary by Sue and Tony Farley Some of you will already know that the Bentley Wood Wildlife Buffer Zone group was set up in 2022 and now consists of almost 200 people, living in villages surrounding Bentley Wood SSSI in south-east Wiltshire, who want to create a nature-friendly buffer zone around the...
Artificial nest sites, which of course includes nestboxes, have become a feature of British gardens, woodlands and nature reserves in the last 40 to 50 years, even diversifying into special “walls” for Sand Martins, concrete riverbank tunnels for Kingfishers and even Osprey nest platforms. Centuries earlier, the First Nation peoples of North America and Canada...
It’s early October and the evening skies above our house are unusually quiet and devoid of movement. A week ago ’our’ colony of house martins were feeding low over neighbouring grass fields and lined up on wires above waiting for the wind to swing round. In previous years the majority left around the autumn equinox...
Approximately seven years ago we had the privilege of having a pair of house martins construct a nest under the eaves at the rear of our house. They nested here for a couple of years and although we did have other pairs start to build nothing much came of this. Unfortunately, during the winter of...
Bentley Wood is a 1,800 acre woodland, with Site of Special Scientific Interest status, located in south-east Wiltshire. A group of people living in villages surrounding the woods have created a Facebook group called the Bentley Wood wildlife buffer zone group. The aim of the group is to create a nature-friendly buffer zone around the...
In June we had a total of 26 nesting pairs, three of which arrived in June. Judging by their smart feathering they were later bred young from last season rather that failed breeders from other colonies. three pairs arriving here in June is average for this colony. In June we had a total of 26...