Stackpole House Martins

Today we counted the number of house martin nests that appeared to be occupied at the Stackpole Centre and at the gazebos in the walled garden to compare with some counts we had made in recent years. The decline in occupancy at the Stackpole Centre was far worse than we had expected!

At the Centre and on nearby adjacent buildings we found only 17 completed nests.  Probably not all of these were occupied judging by a lack of droppings under some of them and a lack of house martin activity. There were no house sparrows obviously occupying the inactive nests either.

In 2016 (the year of the national house martin survey) we had recorded 44 nests on the same buildings and had monitored the breeding outcomes of 26 of these for the national survey. On the side of one building alone where, in 2016, we had monitored 18 out of 20+ nests, today we could only find 3 well-built nests with some breeding evidence in just one of these. The other three were old nests from last year and not in use yet this year.

Just three probably active nests on this part of the building at the Centre. In 2016 there were 20+ nests here.

A grey squirrel up on the roof at the Stackpole Centre today might have been casting an eye on some of the few remaining occupied  house martin nests!

On the positive side, in 2018 we counted 11 occupied nests on the walled garden gazebos on 18th June. Today we counted 18 nests on the same buildings, all with large young. The walled garden is really buzzing with insects, with numerous nectar producing plants etc in a very sheltered and warm location.

A few of the 18 active nests on one of the walled garden gazebos - all 18 have young in the nest

We also had a look at the sea cliffs in the Greenala area where house martins usually breed in a couple of locations. We noted a few flying around the cliffs but failed to see any going to previously occupied sites.

Choughs had fledged 3 young at nearby Trewent Point. It was also pleasing to record two successful breeding pairs at Stackpole this year. A few non-breeding puffins were at their usual Stackpole Head crevice where they are recorded in most years.