Nature Table: Sand Martin

It’s the time of year when many people are looking out for the first swallows, an iconic sign of the arrival of spring. But the appearance of the swallows is normally preceded by the first sand martins, their smaller and less common relatives.

Sand martins have a less deeply forked tail than swallows and their plumage is a subtle blend of brown, grey and white.

Like all the members of this family of birds they live by catching insects on the wing and they tend to be associated with water, particularly with rivers.

The Americans call them ‘bank swallows’ because they often excavate their nesting burrows, which are up to a metre long, in river banks.

However, in Ireland they’re not restricted to this habitat and there are many colonies in old sand and gravel pits, often far from water, and even in abandoned face banks of turf.

They over-winter in west and central Africa so their migration journey is shorter than the trip from South Africa, which the swallows have to make.

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