House Martins NLC
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:42 am
Every year we get house Martins nesting in the eves of our house usually about 2 or 3 nests. This year we have 5 and other than the mess, which is easily cleaned up, I don't really mind them given that the are on the amber list with the RSPB due to a decline in their numbers. Yesterday, one of their nests collapsed, depositing 6 fledglings onto our patio at the back of the house. Unfortunately one bird didn't survive the fall but the other 5 looked stunned but OK.
To protect them from our and neighborhood cats I gathered them up along with the remnants of the nest and placed them in a plastic tub which I placed on a window ledge as close the the original nest site as possible. This didn't work, probably as it wasn't close enough to where the nest was. Quick search on google showed that you can buy nests for them so a mercy dash around local garden centers resulted until I found one.
Using the internals of the original nest to line it I placed all the surviving chicks in their new home and waited to see if the mother would feed them or ignore them remembering all the stories about how if you touch the fledglings then their parents will not feed them etc I did wonder weather this would work.
Watching the new nest I could see the mother trying to see if her chicks were there or not and trying to figure out how to land on it. Later in the evening it became apparent that she had figured it out and was feeding her chicks so hopefully a happy ending to a hectic afternoon
To protect them from our and neighborhood cats I gathered them up along with the remnants of the nest and placed them in a plastic tub which I placed on a window ledge as close the the original nest site as possible. This didn't work, probably as it wasn't close enough to where the nest was. Quick search on google showed that you can buy nests for them so a mercy dash around local garden centers resulted until I found one.
Using the internals of the original nest to line it I placed all the surviving chicks in their new home and waited to see if the mother would feed them or ignore them remembering all the stories about how if you touch the fledglings then their parents will not feed them etc I did wonder weather this would work.
Watching the new nest I could see the mother trying to see if her chicks were there or not and trying to figure out how to land on it. Later in the evening it became apparent that she had figured it out and was feeding her chicks so hopefully a happy ending to a hectic afternoon
But have a few of the nests elsewhere to keep them from nesting inside the buildings.
