Sand Martins

It seems like ages since I was last out with the camera, so it was a nice sunny afternoon yesterday so I was off out to the banks of the River Ribble near walton-le -Dale, too hopefully get some pictures of Sand Martins that are nesting in the steep sandy banks of the river. I wasnt sure how close I could get without upsetting the birds so I scrambled down to the waters edge some distance away and slowly moved closer. The birds were not put off by my presence at all, and as long as I remained nice and still I got to within about 15yards. For about 100 yards along the bank the birds have excavated their nesting burrows and there were hundreds of martins coming in and out, so I thought the best plan was to concentrate on a small area of burrows and not get too distracted about movement further away. They are exceptionally quick moving birds and are in and out of the burrows in a blink of an eye, but quite a few settled at the opening of the burrow for some nice shots and I did get some action shots although due to their high speed I couldnt get sufficient shutter speed to really freeze them but was happy with what I got.

Todays objective, the Sand Martin



Todays location the banks of the River Ribble, near Walton le dale



Best plan of attack was to concentrate on a group of burrows that the birds were actively in and out of.



And with a little patience got some nice shots









A bit of tunnel excavating going on here!







They fire out of the burrows so quickly it was difficult to get shots of them leaving the burrows, but by repositioning I could see more into the burrows and their heads appear as they left









A great couple of hours by the river watching these lovely acrobatic birds.