Making house martin nests

[Fritillary]

Has anyone tried this?

Well I know that the birds are professionals at this, but for something they manage with only mud and spit I seem to be making a meal of my first attempts! Decided to build these and reinforce them with mesh nailed to the boards, as magpies brought down the last martin-built nest last year. (With young inside.) But the external filler I've used (as recommended by eg RSPB) just seems soft and crumbling. I'm wondering whether I need a cement mixture? Or is there something else a bit more resilient which'd be better?
- Not a v. professional DIYer I'm afraid!

 

[theeggman]

Did try it, didn't work.
Bought expensive terracotta ones and the sparrows took them over, as they do with 'real mud' nests. We just leave the martins to it now.

 

[fatshark]

I looked into doing this a year or two ago but got sidetracked.

Search for 'woodcrete' ... here's a recipe I found:

From: Eddy Bayton ([email protected]) Search Result 7
Subject: 'woodcrete receipe update'
Newsgroups: uk.rec.birdwatching This is the only article in this thread
Date: 2002-03-14 03:40:06 PST View: Original Format

If anyone is interested, my successful mix was a 1:4 ratio of cement to
builders sand followed by 6 times that combined volume of wetted sawdust and
shavings. The water was plasticised with washing up liquid and contained 5%
pva and the wood had to be left to soak up the water for an hour so as to
leave excess for the mortar mix to work.

I smeared the mix over an old hemispherical car spotlamp wrapped in a
carrier bag and left it to dry slowly outdoors for a week before unpeeling
and sawing in half to make two martin nests. Amazingly strong and warm to
the touch. Lets see how it weathers.

Eddy

 

[Fritillary]

Yes I'm hoping of course that the 'right' residents will move in. (The sparrows here have plenty of other accommodation.) At this rate though I hope the nests will be fit for somebody...

Many Eddy thanks for the recipe.
"Woodcrete" does seem to be the thing. - Will get some cement and have a go.

 

[theeggman]

We're in the middle of very rural Devon, Devon hedges everywhere but the sparrows still prefer H.martins nests. We've tried weighted strings, small weldmesh and various other things to prevent a straight flight into the nests but we must have sparrows trained by the red arrows.

 

[Fritillary]

On one side of the building here the sparrows eventually completely prevented the martins from nesting, in the end by just destroying the nests, by being too big and heavy (and not repairing) I suppose. On the other, they've damaged nests in the past before the martins returned, but that was all. One winter an astonishing number of wrens roosted together in a martin nest. That was a joy to see! Better behaved squatters than the sparrows.

 

[Erichalfbee]

One winter an astonishing number of wrens roosted together in a martin nest. That was a joy to see! Better behaved squatters than the sparrows.

That's just wonderful to see. We have cameras in a lot of our nest boxes and one in particular used to have at least ten Wrens, sometimes more in it.
One would pop in then another then another. When there were five in it they would jostle over and over to be in the middle. By the time it got dark the rest just piled in on top.
We have a Swift box that now has sparrows in it
We put up Martin cups but nobody is ever interested

 

[Stiffy]

Did try it, didn't work.
Bought expensive terracotta ones and the sparrows took them over, as they do with 'real mud' nests. We just leave the martins to it now.

Glad to hear your h.sparrows are doing well as they are suffering in most places.
I have put up woodcrete h.martin nests and all have been ignored. I also had a wooden sparrow terrace which was used for years but had to come down as it was rotten and before it fell on someone. I replaced it with a very expensive woodcrete box which was ignored for 2 years. I relented , took it down and put up a wooden one.......which they went straight back into.
S

 

[colinc]

On one side of the building here the sparrows eventually completely prevented the martins from nesting, in the end by just destroying the nests, by being too big and heavy (and not repairing) I suppose. On the other, they've damaged nests in the past before the martins returned, but that was all. One winter an astonishing number of wrens roosted together in a martin nest. That was a joy to see! Better behaved squatters than the sparrows.

Wrens have large clutches don't they? Really quite short lived if memory serves but was really pleased to spot a wren nest in the ivy on a conifer above our compost bins at the weekend. I knew they were around and love to see them. We get visits from goldcrests too the other tiny bird.

Unfortunately we live in a converted bungalow so low eaves apart from the end gables so the swifts, swallows and martins ignore us for roosts.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[theeggman]

Glad to hear your h.sparrows are doing well as they are suffering in most places.
I have put up woodcrete h.martin nests and all have been ignored. I also had a wooden sparrow terrace which was used for years but had to come down as it was rotten and before it fell on someone. I replaced it with a very expensive woodcrete box which was ignored for 2 years. I relented , took it down and put up a wooden one.......which they went straight back into.
S

We have a few thousand sparrows you can have if you like, then the H.martins would stand a chance rearing the 5 -6 broods in the nests on our bungalow. I've nothing against sparrows it's just that they have miles of hedgerow and lotsa trees so why do they insist on evicting the poor bl'y H. martins who have flown miles to return here.

 

[Fritillary]

I've nothing against sparrows it's just that they have miles of hedgerow and lotsa trees so why do they insist on evicting the poor bl'y H. martins who have flown miles to return here.

Yes - it's a bit much to fly that far and find your home taken over!

Oh dear. Other people's experiences with making HMartin nests don't sound encouraging... I'm starting to think those pics we see online with birds in the nests have been Photoshopped. Oh well, have now got a ridiculously huge but "smallest available" bag of cement and will press on, but it doesn't sound as though the cement's going to be used for mass production does it? I guess we just don't have the martin equivalent of queen pheromone or old brood comb. Someone suggested online putting a pale streak of fake martin droppings down the front of the nest! I guess I'll try that. Will let you know if anything at all nests in them.

(In the meantime though, apart from spring birdsong, there are other entertainments. From the flat here I see past my landlady's chimneys, full of ferns and (smallish) trees and jackdaws, to lime trees (wonderful in July!!) and home to the local rooks. When they do it - not every evening I don't think - at about 8pm all the rooks and jackdaws take to the air for a bit of formation flying, swooping around for a while, cawing and chattering, and with those wonderful effects you see when a flock of birds changes direction or rises and falls. All very impressive, and then, as a final dramatic flourish, they suddenly plummet down to the tree tops and just all sit there, almost shoulder to shoulder, quietly. It's all you can do not to applaud!)

 

[Stiffy]

We have a few thousand sparrows you can have if you like, then the H.martins would stand a chance rearing the 5 -6 broods in the nests on our bungalow. I've nothing against sparrows it's just that they have miles of hedgerow and lotsa trees so why do they insist on evicting the poor bl'y H. martins who have flown miles to return here.

They may have lots of hedgerows and trees but the clues in the name 'house' sparrow and they don't like nesting in hedgerows or trees. What they really like are the old fashioned wooden fascia and soffit boards that rot out, so they nest communally. We have removed all these and along with other factors, the numbers have plummeted.
I think you may struggle getting house martins to nest around a bungalow as they are naturally cliff dwellers and chose tall structures, there's always the exception though.
I have put up swift boxes and each spring, play a tape out of the upstairs windows trying to get them to nest. Although it's supposed to be easy to attract swifts, I have never succeeded
S

 

[theeggman]

2 years after the bungalow was built we had 6 martins nests in the gables and eaves but then the sparrows took over in subsequent years. We still get dozens of swallow nests in our redundant chicken houses, they used to be there when the chickens were resident which gave DEFRA some 'issues'.

 

[Stiffy]

2 years after the bungalow was built we had 6 martins nests in the gables and eaves but then the sparrows took over in subsequent years. We still get dozens of swallow nests in our redundant chicken houses, they used to be there when the chickens were resident which gave DEFRA some 'issues'.

That's brilliant and just goes to show they don't read the books
I visit a lot of farms and farmers often tell me DEFRA have a problem with swallows close to their milking parlours, thankfully they (the farmers) tend to ignore DEFRA.
S