This week the volunteer work party has been hard at work (as usual), pulling vegetation in front of the reserve's successful artificial sand martin bank.
Sand martins (Riparia riparia) more usually nest in colonies on riverbanks, as their scientific name suggests, burrowing in up to a metre and creating a nesting chamber at the end of the tunnel.
At Saltholme an artificial bank was created before the site opened. It consists of a wall with holes in, to act as tunnel entrances and behind the wall is several tonnes of sand for the sand martins to nest in. We retrofitted a roof two years ago to help keep the elements from washing away the sand and to provide an overhang that acts as a predator defence.
It has been a great success; as many as 90 of the 100 holes available were used this year and with many being used for two broods, it led to a very decent number of young fledging. The birds provided quite a spectacle throughout the breeding season, one of the best places to view them being from our café with a portion of chips and a cup of tea.
The pool in front of the wall acts as a further deterrent to potential predators and if we don't control the vegetation this pool will dry up quite quickly and this line of defence would be lost.
So, on an annual basis the estate volunteers 'wader up' and get stuck in, to quote Linda, 'For the love of it!' It's not the most pleasant of tasks in the mud and the water temperature isn't exactly comfortable, but generally we do it in good humour and with smiles on our faces as we know the benefit it brings to our awesome colony here.
Don't just take my word for it though, come and see the colony for yourself, our sand martins usually start to arrive back at Saltholme between mid March and mid April.