Kitchen Garden Forum

Spent a couple of hours down the plot earlier this morning, and was very pleased to see my first couple of house martins zooming around.
Summer must really be on the way

Ooooh I want to see House Martins so that I can be sure summer is on the way

I have just eaten lunch here (at home) watching masses of Gold finches munching away

Hi PJ,
Suspect that the birds you saw could have been Sand Martins because they migrate in around a month earlier than House Martins.
Having said that my earliest recording here of a Swallow is 12th March 2003. Have seen Swallows in the last week of February in Somerset some years ago and on the way home we drove through a blizzard. I have always wondered if they survived.
Because of the weather that we have had of late I just wonder whether this will be as late a year for Swallows and Martins as last year.
Never the less very pleased to know that they are on their way!
JB.

Johnboy wrote:Hi PJ,
Suspect that the birds you saw could have been Sand Martins because they migrate in around a month earlier than House Martins.
Having said that my earliest recording here of a Swallow is 12th March 2003. Have seen Swallows in the last week of February in Somerset some years ago and on the way home we drove through a blizzard. I have always wondered if they survived.
Because of the weather that we have had of late I just wonder whether this will be as late a year for Swallows and Martins as last year.
Never the less very pleased to know that they are on their way!
JB.

Hi Johnboy,

These were definitely House Martins. The colouring was too dark for Sand Martins. They usually seem to turn up around here at about this time. My plot is only a couple of miles from Dungeness, so they have probably just arrived from the continent.

We've not got any house martins yet, but I went my first walk up the moors yesterday - since tearing the tendons in my knee in November - and it was lovely to hear all the sky larks, curlews, lapwings etc. We even saw a Golden Plover.

PLUMPUDDING wrote:We've not got any house martins yet, but I went my first walk up the moors yesterday - since tearing the tendons in my knee in November - and it was lovely to hear all the sky larks, curlews, lapwings etc. We even saw a Golden Plover.

I love the song of the Skylark. Takes me straight back to my childhood.
Isn't it funny how sounds can transport you to an earlier time in your life

Our plot is surrounded by pastures and this time of the year the oystercatchers are really brazen and come right up to our boundary walls - I think they are just too busy courting to notice a lone human in the their midst. We also get curlews and lapwings displaying around us and the occasional pass by a peregrine from the limestone quarry slopes.

Yesterday we found a half eaten rabbit on the allotment and near it a buzzard pellet. Natural pest control.

We are being visited by a Yellow Hammer this last couple of weeks, he also brings along his good lady wife - awwww

Mr YH



Mrs YH

I'm afraid to say i haven't seen a Yellow Hammer, male or female in the village for a number of years.
There used to be loads in the old rick-yards on the farms, but sadly those days have long gone now, most of them have become gardens for the barn conversions.

oldherbaceous wrote:I'm afraid to say i haven't seen a Yellow Hammer, male or female in the village for a number of years.
There used to be loads in the old rick-yards on the farms, but sadly those days have long gone now, most of them have become gardens for the barn conversions.

It's a shame when birds disappear as the habitat changes isn't it. But, then other birds seem to move in don't they. My daughter lives next door to Ruskin Park in south london, and yesterday I was watching Ring-Necked Parakeets in the trees there

I saw numerous house martins yesterday around Hawkridge Reservoir on the Quantock Hills Somerset. There are plenty of little egrets to be seen in Somerset especially on the peat moors but I have yet to see the cattle egrets that are now also breeding in this part of the county. As well as bitterns there is a reportedly a great white egret lurking in Sedgemoor.

http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1382

I just hope the weather soon warms up now since everything is so late compared to recent years.

Barney

We have a pair of the white egrets around our village - it had been just one for a couple of years, but it appears to have found a mate. I guess there will be a family this year.

Welcome to the forum Suzie.
Iv'e had a squadron of Yellow hammers with me all winter, they seem to have taken over from the Greenfinches that we always had lots of.
cheers
Arthur

Thank you arthur e

I see you are in NE Scotland, I lived up there for a while in Boddam, nr Peterhead - t'was mightly cold for a Cornish lass

This is the first year I have seen a Yellow Hammer up close and personal, they are quite lovely.

You are lucky to have Yellow Hammer so close. They used to be common round here, but I've not seen or heard any for a couple of years now.

The nearest I've come across are a nice big flock at Old Moor Wetlands - the RSPB reserve a few miles from us. They also get lots of Tree Sparrows which we don't get here either. We only have a few House sparrows. There used to be hundreds and were a complete menace for eating all the pea shoots, so at least I can grow peas now without too much bother.