Swallows and house martin numbers down?

Near me in the east riding of yorkshire we normally get the first visitors arrive around the 9th of april, last year was the 21st and 2019 the first was the 23rd.

Numbers normally start to grow rapidly into a good sized community of swallows and martins......so far though there are so few i can count them on two hands....

Have others seen similar....could it be that the birds that normally come to my area have had a problem on the migration, or is there a general poor migration number this year?

  • I am in Cumbria and we have 5 house martin nests in our low eaves and one in the higher eaves. For several years we have had 3 to 6 nests occupied and each producing 2 or 3 broods. So far this year only one pair have returned after a record nmber left last year. I walk around the area every day with my black lab and have seen 2 swallows (today) and 2 house martins (may be our pair! ) and no swifts. There are usually loads down by the pub but did not see or hear one yesterday. I feel really sad and worried. I did write a question about it so repeat on here (sorry). Is it too late to hope we will see more this year? Does anyone know why the huge loss?
  • Yep, been driving around for work today, not seen one....i thought i was been generous yesterday when i said i could count them on two hands :(...

    I can actually only remember seeing three in our village and one near a farm down the road over the last few days.....but its now lunch time and working in a radius of ten miles from home not one....
    very sad and concerned....
    the site of swallows/martins/swifts swooping through the sky and the bree bree of them chasing each other is so heart warming...and to make it worse the only nest on our house, that has been there for years, has half collapsed ..... :(((

    Has anyone got any idea as to the reason for the low numbers???
  • I live in South Cumbria and have lived in the same house for 25 years.
    This is the first year I haven't seen any swallows in the nearby church tower which is very sad.
    I really miss them flying around in the evening and the sound they make.
    Very worrying.
    Has anyone else in South Cumbria experienced the same?
  • Yes, I am in south cumbria, near Broughton in Furness. Still no more sightings. 2 House martins nesting on our house and have seen two swallows flying around, that's it. So sad as the house martins had such a good breeding season last year. All that hard work and effort by these lovely birds for what?
    I must admit I have not completely given up hope yet, although ours usually arrive mid April. Does anyone know if they have arrived this late in past years?
  • :(
    Today, Still only seen two from a distance so couldn't identify them....

    A customer mentioned netting stories in northern africa...did a duckduckgo search (my preferred search engine over google for privacy/advertising reasons) and found the following daily mail article from the 5th of May.. which is a bit sickening...

    www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Where-swallows-gone.html

    this needs to be investigated properly, then a real course of action taken at a global/governmental level if true, as I don't remember ever seeing this sudden decline in numbers... so i think it's gone to commercial levels...please correct me if i'm wrong....

    Really concerned for the future of our southward migrating birds ....
  • I am no bird watcher as such , just enjoy them being around .

    Always , always for the last thirty years i have lived here we have had dozens and dozens of house martins and swifts , never a year without nest building either end of the house .

    I have noticed the last couple of years at migration time there seemed to be substantially less lining up on the wires to leave .

    This year , no nests to date and very very few pairs , the fields are normally festooned with low flyong birds arcing across them at low level , they are barely noticeable ,

    Area Gower S.Wales .
  • We have same problem up here in North Cumbria, it feels almost errie, no swallows..no house martins nesting, something is very wrong, its just too quiet.

    I'd heard about the horrendous netting practice during migration, but I didn't realise the scale of the problem until I watched Chris Packhams piece on it recently.

    We did have lots of young that fledged last year though in answer to your question.

  • A bird is no longer free to fly anywhere in the sky?

    When are we ever going to wake up to our incredibly selfish ways....
  • @Robbo ,
    We did have young last year , at this rate we will have nothing this year .
  • Hi my house Martin’s were 6 pairs down and the male swallow was alone for 10 days until his mate arrived. The Martins have increased massively but not by as many as the swallows who now number 50.

    My problem is my house Martin have disappeared could they have migrated early?