Thursday April 18th 2019

They're back. Who are? 'My' house martins, that's who! 

Not the three birds in this picture it has to be said, which was snapped in 2015. But their offspring. Miraculously appearing today as if they'd never been away. Early September last year there were a number of martins chattering noisily around the house. We went on a weeks holiday only to return to silence. Deadly, claustrophobic, morbid silence. They'd gone, a month earlier than normal. And who could blame them. 2018 was not a good year for wildlife. Summer migrants began arriving just as the successive Beast of the East waves of arctic air barrelled into Britain. Temperatures plummeted and an easterly airflow managed to subdue temperatures dramatically along with the most impressive late season snowfall for decades. Mid April then saw the most dramatic switch resulting in nearly 4 months of dry hot sunny weather in the South West at least. Everything turned yellow, crisp and even. With no rain, insect populations crashed, breeding success was subdued but still life went on. Some species of course, butterflies and moths for example, enjoyed this hot weather. Not until early September did any rain fall in Somerset, first appreciable falls since early May. And then the martins left abruptly. 

They usually return here at the start of April, just a few then a rush by the second week. This year however I was beginning to worry. Not a single bird. Had 2018's odd year suppressed the breeding success of the birds, a species already in serious decline? By April 16th I'd got so worried having seen a number of swallows but still no martins, I asked on Facebook. Friends hadn't seen any either, except surprisingly one in Cleveland who's seen a couple of birds a week before.  I looked on-line, hardly any reports, a few here, a few there, even the Portland Bird Observatory was just counting high teen numbers. Worrying. Where were they? I need not have worried.  Arriving home at 5pm after a busy shift at Tyntesfield, I opened the car door and there they were, swooping noisily in and out the nest as if they'd just been away for the day. Such joy. This morning as I left silence, tonight they're back, a week or so later than usual, but they're back. Back in December I'd gazed on the nest and thought of them overwintering 4,000 miles away in warm, sunny Africa, hoping they were well.  And they were, for by this evening half a dozen were flying above the house. Magic.

I'm overjoyed. So much so I'm going to experiment with some clay mud in a dish in the garden for them. It's been dry for weeks here and everything is baked hard. I've been reading that doing this little thing can make all the difference to their repairs of last years nest. I hope so.