I wander around the garden, deciding to go barefoot on the sodden grass and notice jewels on the washing line, hazel leaves like a tricolour flag and two storm-trodden globe thistles released to the ground. Within the space of just a few minutes I see around thirty house martins swarming above the trees southwest of my garden. Seemingly chaotic in flight but never crashing. Feasting on a breakfast of flying insects let loose by the September rain.
House martins, Delichon Urbicum, are from the swallow family or hirundines. These beloved migrants arrive in the UK from their African wintering grounds every spring and return in the autumn. Although they are still quite large in number, loving rural hamlets like ours, recent declines place them on the Red List, under threat of extinction.
The following morning, I find myself gazing at my neighbour’s house while waiting to drive my teenage daughter to school, amazed at speed of the house martins in the sky. Attempting to keep my sight on them, to count them, but failing. I find myself smiling, delighted to have made their acquaintance again. On the way home from the school run, driving down a road flanked by hedgerows I am blown away by hundreds of house martins darting from one side of the road to the other, just above the car’s bonnet.
Over the next few days, I lose track of the colony, catching only a smattering of house martins while out and about, mostly resting on the telephone wires or feeding in the sky. My system is struggling to stay afloat under the low, grey skies and the birds, largely absent, seem to feel it too. The intensely negative news cycle doesn’t help with my focus. Sometimes there is such a painful dissonance between my pleasant outdoor landscape and the hell-scapes I witness on the news. For the first time I ponder the impact of conflict on migrating birds as well as the children.
One day I watch a dozen or so house martins on my neighbour’s roof: resting, waiting, preening their feathers and watching me with their onyx eyes. I move quietly and examine them from the monobloc, imagining their different personalities and roles. Some impatient to fly, others resistant to go. Their quiet beauty astounds me, sitting in a line along the gutter in readiness for migration, with a few sparrows too. My daughter slams the front door, and they are gone. I’m not quite ready to let them go.
On the day of the Harvest Full Moon, I take my coffee and toast and sit outside by the patio doors before the others wake. The sunrise blesses the shed and hazel tree and sparrows chitter in the hedges. There are a few house martins in the distance dancing above the trees. Some come close, white bellies to the sun. In my poetry group that evening I share that I am writing a piece about house martins. One friend on the call, who lives in the south of Spain, tells me that her local zoo is inviting members of the public to take home unwell and underweight hirundines and feed them up before returning them for release and subsequent migration.
Days go by without seeing the house martins at all. Seeing them requires a particular kind of commitment. Requires deciding to sit outside before looking at my phone in the morning. Requires deciding to sit down at my writing desk with its view over the neighbouring houses and fields. Requires being present while I am driving. My subconscious tells me that the threat and constant danger reported each day in the media, like a saline drip, is more important. The human brain is always looking out for its species first.
My local National Nature Reserve, Loch Leven, shares a video of hirundines coming to eat and roost near the pier. I put the video on full-screen and watch them swarming in their thousands over the surface of the loch. I wonder if our house martins are there. I am so taken by the beauty of this spectacle that I share it online and forward to a friend and my husband. Look, look I want to say. Isn’t it incredible? Aren’t they incredible? Look, please look.
That night I drive with my husband down to the pier. It is wet, cold and the stench of algae on the loch is putrid. Not long after arriving the hirundines come to the reed bed and forage in the heavy evening sky. Crows and gulls carve through the murmuration like speed boats in the water. Most impressively, a kestrel tries to infiltrate the crowd but is chased away and dives quickly into the woodland. It was mesmerising watching them together, making patterns in the sky only they understand. And it feels subversive to do this on a Saturday evening when others, and normally us, were at home choosing screens instead.
Since then, the rain has lessened. The autumn winds remain. I spot a solitary house martin on the currents. Mostly I think they have gone and I find myself sending out a silent prayer to thank them for helping me accept the season and to wish them well on their epic voyage, painfully aware of the threats they face. Ambitiously, I vow to be more active in my monitoring next year – counting nests, watching broods etc. I join a group on Facebook and download a new app from House Martin Conservation. I message the neighbourhood WhatsApp group too. They are busy people but have good hearts. I hope that they might decide to look up more.
Orla Beaton
Orla Beaton is a self-published writer and poet originally from Belfast and now living in Milnathort with her husband and daughter. Orla has recently begun an MLitt in Creative Writing at Stirling University and combines her passion for Nature and wellness through her work as a movement and mindfulness teacher.
Find Orla on Substack: @orlabeaton