Autumn Checks Show a Record Number of Sand Martin Nests at Arundel

9 October 2024

A record number of 83 sand martin nests were counted in annual autumn checks at WWT Arundel Wetland Centre on Wednesday 2 October.

A record number of 83 sand martin nests were counted in annual autumn checks at WWT Arundel Wetland Centre on Tuesday 1 October. The nest were built inside nest chambers that make up the artificial nesting banks in the wings of the Sand Martin hide. A colony of sand martins arrive at WWT Arundel in early April each year. The Reserve Wardens open the nest banks after the sand martins migrate to clean out the nest bank and see how many nesting chambers were used.

The image above is a sand martin with nesting material, photographed by visitor Cam Parfitt this spring.

Reserve Manager Suzi Lanaway said: “All the nest holes in the top row of the left wing had nests in them! The left side had 49 nests while the right side had 34."”

The 83 nests are more than double the 38 nests found after the 2023 sand martin breeding season. The colony has increased to fill almost a third of the 300 nest chambers in the unique hide with its two artificial nest banks surrounding a bird hide built between them . The entire hide has a sand-effect finish, and plants growing on the roof to look like a sandy cliff along a riverbank.

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A sand martin nest with a couple of eggs that were infertile

The sand martin colony has been expanding since 2019 when only three nests were found in the chambers. In 2020 seven nests were discovered increasing to 15 nests in both wings of bank in 2021. 24 nests were recorded in 2022.

Every autumn the Arundel Wetland Centre Reserve Team open the chambers to clean out old nests and unblock nest holes for the sand martins to use when they return in early April. There are rooms behind the nesting holes where the Wardens can access the chambers when backing boards are removed.

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Sand martin nest visible in the nest chambers with the backing board removed.

Former Reserve Manager Paul Stevens was on hand to help Suzi check the 300 nesting chambers in the hide. Paul oversaw the building of this Sand Martin hide in 2010 when he was Reserve Manager at WWT Arundel until 2020. Paul now volunteers his expertise to WWT and is the Conservation Lead for House Martin Conservation UK & Ireland.

The sand martins left our site in early September to migrate south, to spend the winter in Africa. We have still been seeing flocks of house martins moving through on their migration over the past few weeks.