Friday 1 June 2012

House Martins

Has anyone noticed  a significant fall in the number of House Martins?
Amazingly I have not seen one in the Little Don Valley this year. There are usually 20-30 pairs in the Stocksbridge & Deepcar areas, but to my knowledge not a one to date.
Additionally there were smaller numbers than usual at the Ingbirchworth group of reservoirs this spring.

4 comments:

Young Nudger said...

I don't get out birding as much as I would like from March to July because of work - but in my opinion sand martins have had more of a disastrous spring in comparison to house martins.
Something serious has happened on the spring migration over the Sahara this spring because there seems to be quite a few species that are much lower in number this year.
Sand Martin
House Martin
Gropper
Willow Warbler
Whitethroat

Anymore to add to the list?

Cliff Gorman said...

Although I have seen good numbers at Wintersett in recent weeks I cannot say the sme at my own reserve. Carlton Marsh being small doesn't get that many, but this year very few were noted on passage.

Lawy said...

No, but Sand Martins well down.

Martin Wells said...

Just walked down from Whitwell Moor and had 30+ House Martins over the Garden Village area of Stocksbridge. There were in the valley none until up to the 31st May - this is very strange indeed.