Now we are in mid-summer of hot and still long days, but just minutes shorter day by day. Many birds have fledged from their nests setting out on their task of building up their strength and weight to get through the winter months, either by migration over large distances or short down journeys from the hills to the valleys, leaving a small band that see the year through come storm and blizzard in their same location.

Our House Martin saga is a little better than we had feared, there are martins in the locality, but only a few, on occasion they visit swooping past, even some evenings flying up to our eaves, looking at last year’s nests, now mostly broken. But there is no pair of martins nesting on the house.

It has happened before, long years with no nests, then years building back up to last year’s squadron, many broods departing in the autumn for Africa.