I guess choosing a home is as serious a task for house martins as it is for us humans! I read somewhere that they are very gregarious, so perhaps just seeing the nest you put up led them to believe it was a good neighbourhood in which to raise a family.

I don’t have any house martins nesting on my home, much as I’d love to see some. However, I can fully understand you not wanting them to nest above your back door!

A really great post – I keep on finding gems on your blog.

We tried a similar thing here in the UK using a synthetic clay ‘nest’ bolted up in the eaves of the house.

The objective was to try and encourage the house martins not to nest above our back door.

It kind of worked because the HM’s built their nest directly alongside the prebuilt one.

I guess they like the challenge of building rather than just occupying one.

Rob