365/143: 12 July 2010: House Martin Feeding Young

We have three house martin nests outside our bedroom window. they make a bit of a mess on the yard down below, and they wake us early with their rather cute burbling noises, but who’d be without them. A cat inside and house martins outside are, to my mind, vital parts of turning a house into a home.
The nest is almost as interesting as the birds I think. To quote Gilbert White from his Natural History of Selborne it’s “..a sort of rustic work full of knobs and protuberances..”.  And as we an see in the picture , the young “..sit all day with their heads out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest supply them with food from morning to night.” Pretty much like kids everywhere then.

In the next one you can actually see the adult putting food in the middle youngster’s mouth.