House Martins

When the house martins returned in the spring, there were noticeably fewer of them, presumably suffering from the dire winter weather. Although nests under the eaves of neighbouring houses were occupied, none of ours had them take up residence.
Now they are clearly preparing to migrate. There are lots and lots of them so I have to assume that the breeding season has been good, and made up for winter casualties.
What I am noticing is that there is a lot of flying in and out of all the nests, rather like they are laying claim to a home for next spring.
Do they normally do this? I can't say I've noticed it before - but there's a lot of excitement and dive-bombing all the nests and some seem to sit inside and repel boarders!
Interesting behaviour - perhaps the youngsters marking future territory? Or imprinting for future reference where "home" will be next year.
Now they are clearly preparing to migrate. There are lots and lots of them so I have to assume that the breeding season has been good, and made up for winter casualties.
What I am noticing is that there is a lot of flying in and out of all the nests, rather like they are laying claim to a home for next spring.
Do they normally do this? I can't say I've noticed it before - but there's a lot of excitement and dive-bombing all the nests and some seem to sit inside and repel boarders!
Interesting behaviour - perhaps the youngsters marking future territory? Or imprinting for future reference where "home" will be next year.
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We have seen, in normal years, lots of dive bombing nests, quite fun to watch.
Although the nests are often occupied year after tear it’s not always by the same two birds so they could well be scouting for nests for the next year.
According to the RSPB males return to the same or near to the same colony, females return to within a few in away.
Cheers
We've only seen a couple so far, so we have to assume that they are the advance guard, and we expect to see lots of them shortly.
Spring has truly sprung and summer is (shortly) icumin in!