Wild Wednesday - House martin
The western house martin, also called the common house martin, arrives in the UK late March, or April, and migrates to Africa for the winter months, leaving in August.
They feed on flying insects which they catch in flight and spend much of their time flying and collecting prey.
Although widespread in the UK, sadly numbers are declining and these birds are now included on the red list (a listing used by governments which report extinction risks for species, tracking progress so they can work toward targets for reducing biodiversity loss).
Some confuse the house martins with swallows - house martins are much smaller than swifts and swallows and have a small, forked tail. They have shiny a blue-black upper with white under parts and if you look closely, they have white feathers covering their legs and toes. The house martin also feeds at a higher altitude than swallows.
They build nests using mud, sometimes in small colonies, traditionally on cliff faces but you are more likely see them on manmade structures, and under the eaves of houses, as their name suggests. Due to it's protected status, nests may only be removed when not in use and only when it is essential do so. The birds will return to their original nesting site each year and will stay with their breeding partner for their lifespan, which is about 2 years.
They only weigh about 20g and we have about 510,000 breeding pairs of house martins in the UK.
They are a noisy bird species, especially in breeding colonies, and make several different noises - the male, a soft tuneful twitter, the contact call is a distinctive 'chirrrrp' and if alarmed the bird will make a shrill 'tseep'.
Read more here: House martin | The Wildlife Trusts
Photo credit to Sebastian @sin.wildlife