Sorry for the recent dearth of blogtivity, we have been experiencing some technical difficulties since the alterations were made to the community pages.

There is a good deal to report however, not least on and around the sand martin wall. Last Wednesday Luke and I watched a single sand martin reccy-ing the joint. For the 20 or so minutes it wove patterns in front of the wall, swooping in close then banking away or hovering close - seemingly peering into the carefully contrived burrows.

By the weekend birds were going into the wall and chattering excitedly - much as we were watching them. It may have taken them a wee while but it seems that finally the Sand Martin Wall is deserved of its title!

Wall + sand martins = Sand Martin Wall. Picture Allan Neilson.

This morning although I couldn't say for sure it appeared that the kingfisher brood had fledged as I twice saw an adult bird fly with fish behind, rather than into, their nest burrow. Sure enough some visitors to the hide were later able to confirm that juveniles have been on the wing later on in the morning, so dual celebrations are due!

Interestingly Allan Neilson, who spent a long time watching for wall developments over the weekend, witnessed one of the adult kingfishers seemingly eyeing-up one of the sand martin burrows as presumably the existing burrow must by now be fairly rank. So who knows what next?