House Martins are a summer visitor that has declined by 66% in the last 20 years. Imagine that if you can? 20 years ago when you may have seen flocks of a hundred this is now reduced to 30 and if this trend continues this 30 will be reduced to less than ten in the next 20 years. That will be a reduction of 90%. Obviously that can't be sustained, is the species on the road to possible extinction. How sad would that be? I remember my father telling me that in the summer time in 1930 when he was a boy, the air was black with Swallows, Swifts and Martins and they were that numerous that they would block out the sun! We had Martins breeding on my house here in Exeter 25 years ago, in fact every house in my street had House Martins nesting, last year there was just one nest. I was therefore very pleased to see quite a large flock gathering mud for their nests on the muddy puddles in the flood relief scheme near Exeter Quay. I went back this morning to try and get some in flight photos which at first was very successful but then a couple of workers arrived to cut the grass which spooked them a bit ( to say the least).
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