4 minute read
Country Mouse
The strange death of our village house martins
giles wood
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As the mighty Colorado River has been reduced to a mere trickle, so my marriage is now measured in small acts of mutual kindness.
I bring the wife meals on a tray and drive at 20mph. In return, she mends my expanding man-trouser buttons and thoughtfully fillets the tsunami of news media to present me with articles of ecological interest to read while I’m soaking in the tub.
The other day, Mary, who is overworked, had mistaken a guide to weekend retreats in the West Country for something of eco-relevance. Nevertheless it seemed to await my urgent attention.
The words ‘bolthole’ and ‘escape’ jumped out at me as I leafed through page after glossy page of immaculately presented chocolate-box retreats. As I reflected that Suffolk pink has been somewhat overused as a shade, I noted that something else was wrong.
Judging by the foliage, all these buildings had been photographed in midsummer – peak time for nesting house martins. But this eco-zealot has a forensic eye for detail and I found that I was looking in vain for wall striae. There was no telltale trail of guano. Had the images been Photoshopped to suit the more squeamish palates of city dwellers? Or, worse, had the house-owners Kärchered the guano off the walls, using the highpower jet hose to dispatch the nests, too?
That part of south Wiltshire is too far for me to do a citizen’s arrest or spot check. One hopes that in every English village there is a busybody like me to remind householders of their duty, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, not to destroy the nest of any wild bird.
Yet many modern Britons are so de-natured that they dislike the idea of sharing their homes with wildlife.
Indeed, a plumber who recently visited our cottage declared that he
‘Luckily, they’re behind bars’
welcomes the current Insectageddon with open arms as it represents considerable savings on ‘killer sprays for within the home environment’.
There were more eco-crimes to be gleaned from the photos. There was evidence of chicken wire over one of the thatches to deter sparrows, which have nested in thatched hovels since Hereward the Wake. There were barnconversion retreats whose goldfish-bowl aspects permit the viewing of Britons in leisurewear moving around inside. They have no business being there. Each conversion will have meant the mass eviction of hirundines (swifts, swallows and martins), not to mention barn owls.
I turned back to the agitprop mountain amassed by my kind wife – I am currently looking for someone or something to blame for the complete absence of nesting house martins in our own village. Widespread declines have been reported in Europe since 1970 and the usual suspects are listed − intensive farming, human disturbance and weird weather. For many years, I bucked the trend by watering the road to provide mud for nests, but this year not a single nest has been built or reoccupied.
Their absence represents a total rupture with my past – and my annual ritual of watching hundreds of swallows and house martins gather on telegraph wires, bound for Africa.
The superstitious side of me is aware that their absence also has a sinister meaning.
I read aloud to Mary from Richard Jefferies, the Victorian nature writer, who recorded this old country-folk belief: ‘If they do not return to the eaves but desert their nest, it is a sign of misfortune impending over the household.’
‘Does that mean our whole village is doomed?’ I quavered.
Mary retorted that old Wiltshire legends bore no relevance in the modern day. She cited another superstition reported by Jefferies: ‘If an invalid takes a fancy to a dish of pigeons to eat, it is a sign either of coming dissolution or of extreme illness.’
‘So both superstitions are bunkum,’ decreed Mary. ‘Ring round some of the other villages and see if they have any house martins.’
Sophie, living three miles away, used to demonise woodpeckers. In the past, she witnessed six out of eight of her house-martin nests being hammered by her Cannibal Lecter of a Woody. Grim to report − but Woody gobbled up the fledglings. This year, she outwitted the woodpeckers by installing concrete, artificial nests under her eaves.
Local birdman Charlie Corbett, author of 12 Birds to Save Your Life (2021), living five miles away, took the wind out of my sails. His village had at least 25 pairs nesting successfully. What could account for the difference?
Corbett says, ‘It’s hard to pin down a reason definitively. Our village has many old-fashioned houses with deep roof overhangs. We have the canal very close which is good for making muddy nests as well as harbouring insects. It was a very dry and cold spring − so my only theory is that you’re not very close to a reliable water source and so nestbuilding was difficult. And the cold, dry spring meant insect life in your village was at a minimum.’ ‘I’ll have my work cut out for me next spring,’ I told Mary, ‘making mud pies and attracting flies to the cottage.’
