A Circlage of House Martins
Known as The Common House Martin, there is nothing common about this beautiful bird. Because they are so attractive, they are welcomed, or at least tolerated, by humans when their house is chosen for nesting (hence their name).
For the more aspirational, any old house simply won’t do. No sir, only a King’s house fits the bill (no pun intended). The joy of seeing house martins back on the walls of Château Royal d’Amboise is hard to describe. Magnificent. Fascinating. The best free entertainment ever. They return from winters in Africa to the same sites every year. They use their old nests, saving them about ten day's work collecting mud. A pair remain together to breed for life which is not very long. The average life span is less than five years.
The nest, a cup with a narrow opening at the top, is built by the male and the female with mud pellets collected in their beaks. The mud, added in successive layers, is collected from ponds, streams, puddles or the Loire? Many of us around town (including the author) assume house martins are swifts because they are, well, so swift, but Carolyn of sosmartinets.com said ‘the main facade of the Château & le Tour Heurtault together host one of the largest colonies of house martins anywhere around’. At least the house martin has the good manners to stay still long enough to pose for photographs. The swift is not nearly so obliging. According to Wikipedia, it originally only nested on cliffs but now will use a city centre if it is near water, if there are plenty of flying insects and the air is unpolluted.
They build nests at the junction of a vertical surface and an overhang so that it’s strengthened on two sides. In that case, the circlage on the Château have the perfect environment. The breeding season can last longer than many other species. A few house martins may still have young in the nest in September or even October. Four or five white eggs are laid. There are normally two broods each year, the nest being reused for the second brood, repaired and used again in subsequent years. The female does most of the incubation, which lasts up to sixteen days. Depending on the weather, chicks are between twenty-two and thirty-two days old when they leave the nest. Fledglings stay with, and are fed by, the parents for about a week after leaving. Sometimes, first-year birds from the first brood help feed the second. After leaving the nest the young flock in trees, on housetops or on the wire. By the end of October, most have left their breeding areas.
Hundreds of poems are dedicated to the swift, less so for the house martin although it was honoured by none other than Shakespeare: "This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle. Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed The air is delicate." (Macbeth)
Post by Pamela, Photography by Mark
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