Swifts and Martins

How's the birding everybody?

I'm a little concerned myself, the swifts in my neighbour are still prospecting for nesting places and it's almost August. Watching them hover under next-door's eaves has led to me to researching swift nest boxes, which seem like a jolly good idea keeping in mind how modern building practices deprive possibly the most enigmatic of all our summer visitors of suitable next sites.
We just might invest in one.

Happily the local population of hirundine seems to be in good number, particularly sand martins. There is a lot of sand quarrying in my part of the country and that keeps in ready supply the soft banks that are ideal for this species to carve nest hollows into.







Very sweet little birds, in a few months this youngster maybe only a three weeks old will have flown all the way to sub-Saharan Africa. How amazing is that?