Finally on their way …

I think our house martins have left the islands now. I saw them on the telephone wires while I was making my breakfast tea on the last day of September but they weren’t there yesterday morning. I kept an eye open for them all day but didn’t spot one and this morning there’s still no sign.

So they must presently be arrowing their way south to warmer climates for the winter. It’s impossible to differentiate one house martin from another because they just don’t stay still long enough for you to get a close look at them. So none of ours acquired names (unlike some of the thrushes, blackbirds and robins in the garden) but I wish them all ‘Bon Voyage’ and hope that as many as possible are able to return next summer.

Gardening

I’m tired and I ache all over, especially my back, shoulders and neck I spent about six hours working in the greenhouse and garden today and my poor (almost-fifty year old) body has been grumbling and groaning since I came indoors at 6.30pm.

It’s my own fault – I should know better than to drag a whopping great big pallet across the grass when I know such a foolish action could set off my sciatica. Why did I need the pallet? Well, I have mealy bugs on my Christmas and Easter cacti and I bought some Ultimate Bug Killer spray yesterday so I could DEAL with them – nasty little blighters! It comes in a bright yellow spray bottle and the precautions are fairly stringent. So I had to line the cacti up on the wooden pallet and wait until early evening when the wildlife was trundling off home before I could blast the mealybugs lurking in the nooks and crannies of the plants with the death-dealing liquid.

I’ve also sowed seeds of basil and parsley to keep in pots in the greenhouse for winter herbs, taken lots of cuttings of geraniums (zonal pelargoniums) including one of my favourites, Frank Headley, with its silver-edged green leaves and single soft salmon pink blooms, potted up all the hyacinth bulbs that flowered last year as well as three prepared white ones (which have been relegated to a cupboard in the shed), untangled/pruned/tied in and tamed two jasmine polyanthum that were attempting to take over the far end of the greenhouse, lopped off and ditched huge chunks of some of the rather tatty ‘motherplant’ zonal pelargoniums, and evicted about a dozen caterpillars in shades of green, khaki, brown and silver which were chewing holes in said pelargoniums.

Every time I walk past our two pear trees, one a Conference and one a Concorde (but don’t ask me which is which) there is a great kerfuffle as up to a dozen starlings take wing in fright. The bl**dy birds are eating the pears off the branches … well, the ones they can reach anyway, and leaving just the stalk and empty skin. Even worse, they are shi**ing all over the pears below the ones they are eating … URGH!!! I hurl colourful invectives at them, I stamp, I wave my arms and even run around the trees but they come back as soon as I go away. I know there are enough pears to go round, I know they can only eat the pears that they can reach by sitting on a branches, I know that the pears aren’t even properly ripe yet, but the sight of the birds in the trees makes me really cross.

Our house could be called ‘Starling Towers’ because we have nests in three out of four corners of the roof and the resident flock of starlings is just that – resident. They don’t leave in the autumn and return in the spring, they are here all year round. Mind you, they are glorious to watch when they do their ’swooping-as-one’ performance over the beach in the evening, silhouetted against the pale blue, grey and pink evening sky.

The House Martins have been very active again today, feeding and flying, occasionally sitting on the telephone wires and twittering excitedly to each other and the time approaches for the big departure.

Now I think I shall hobble off to bed doing a very good ‘hunchback’ impression … goodnight all.

House Martins

This year we have had a plethora of House Martins

House Martins – Birds of Britain website

House Martins – Wikipedia

They are swift, agile birds with black caps, dark steely-blue uppersides and creamy white tummies, who arrive in the UK in the spring and early summer, nest, raise their young and then depart for their wintering grounds in Africa. Our first lodgers arrived late in the summer about three years ago and proceeded to build a nest on a sloping guttering downpipe just below the wide eaves of our three storey house. They only just managed to raise their first brood in time for their autumn departure but we reckon they got about four fledgelings raised to adulthood. They returned, again late in the summer, last year and repeated their performance. Another pair of House Martins built a nest on an identical guttering downpipe on the other side of the house but we weren’t sure if they managed to raise a brood – perhaps they were the previous year’s offspring.

This year, we had House Martins much earlier in the summer but they seemed rather unfocused on the job in hand – flying around and feeding on the wing, making desultory attempts to repair the nest, giving up, trying again a few days later. We suspect that they might have been last year’s offspring returning ahead of their parents. Then more birds turned up and there were some fairly fierce arguments about who would take possession of the two winter-ravaged nests. At times eight or more House Martins were swooping and twittering around the nests. Eventually, they decided on the ‘pecking order’ and a pair took residence in each nest, repairing them and laying eggs.

So the first broods emerged much earlier this year and we were delighted to observe at least three fledgelings from each nest take to the air, with a great deal of encouragement from their parents. Even better, one of the downpipes became a ‘terrace’ with a second nest being built touching the original and more eggs being laid! Once the original brood had flown the nest, more eggs were laid and the second broods have just emerged from the nests to take to the wing

I stood in the garden yesterday evening just as dusk was falling and there were at least sixteen House Martins swooping overhead in blindingly fast acrobatic moves, twittering and chirrupping excitedly, as if the urge to fly south for the winter was becoming irresistible.

This morning some of them were really enjoying themselves, playing chase at top speed, ducking and diving, swerving and dipping until I felt quite dizzy watching them. I wondered if that was ‘the kids’ because other adult birds seemed to be intent on the nest. On closer inspection, I could see one tiny black-capped head poking through the side entrance of the mud structure and the fledgeling was keeping up an almost constant nervous demanding chirrup. One after the other, birds flew up to the nest, clung on for a few moments, twittering furiously as if scolding the errant youngster, before loosing their hold and skimming away. It looked as if they had an ultra-wimpy baby and were trying to coax it out of the nest.

It’s not unusual for House Martins to leave unfledged or unready youngsters behind when they depart UK shores for their distant wintering grounds. Then starvation or hypothermia will finish them off. I hope this won’t be the case for Wimpy but he/she is going to have to find some courage from somewhere and get used to venturing out of the safety of the nest.

I shall miss the House Martins and the sudden dark flash as they whisk past in a blink, twittering and chirruping as they do. They’ve been wonderful amusement this summer, hunting low for insects over the roads and nearby pond – even over the beach with its heaped up piles of seaweed – and indulging in astonishing aerobatics just for the sheer joy of it.