Nesting House Martin pair and baby birds-pictures

I'm following a breeding House Martin pair from the beginning of June. They built their nest in the window opening of my neighbor, at the 4th (the last) floor. I tried several times to take some photos but they are just flying in circles and are afraid to come to the nest when they see me in the window.

I decided not to stress them too much but now that the chick are so big that they could fly away any moment, I decided to insist with the photos. Besides my big hart, I admit that I had another reason to delay these photos: I usually get so involved when taking pictures that I forget to watch my steps and often step in unpleasant things. This time it was a 15 m high step but the photo session ended without acrobatics.

Here are the photos taken with a trembling hand:

"There are three of us, but I'm the boss, at your left."
Two House Martin chicks in the nest
Their black head and upperparts are hard to distinguish in the pictures because of the shadow on the wall but their pure white underparts are quite well visible.

"I'm not ugly, I'm hungry and you scared my food away with your stupid camera."
House Martin baby bird with wide open beak
Here is the entire gang calling loud for their mom.
Picture of House Martin nest with three baby birds
O.K., I'll try from inside the room. I'm afraid of heights anyway.
As soon as I left the window, one of the adults landed immediately at the nest.

Though the picture taken from indoors is not clear, you can see a wide open baby bird beak at the right of the adult bird.
House Martin bird feeding the chicks
Another unsuccessful shot taken during nest building, in June. It was almost dark outside.
I admired their art of nest building, from several layers of mud, reinforced with grasses, hair and various soft materials.

House Sparrows often try to take over the nest during construction, sometimes with success.
Once the nest is complete, the entrance at the top of the nest is so small that the sparrows cannot take over.
House Martin -nest building on a window frame
In turn, House Martins would wall-up House Sparrows by closing the entrance of the mud nest with the intruder inside, an old legend says.

Have a look at the colorful greenfinch, in breeding season.

5 comments:

JSK said...

Great photos!
Love the expression on the youngsters face (second image down)

Tatjana Parkacheva said...

I like your post and photos, especially the second :)

Regards!

eileeninmd said...

Cute photos of the baby birds. Great post, thanks for sharing on Camera Critters.

Mitchellville said...

Nice photos. House Martins are so cute and the babies are adorable!

Just be careful. The nesting on the windows bring bird-mites! They are nasty little things and will infest the apartment. Big issue where I am at. Plus, watch the vents to the dryers that lead outside, they sometimes nest in those, and chimneys if you got them.

Janie said...

Great photos of the nest and chicks. Climbing 15 meters to take the photo must've been a little hair-raising.

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