Juvenile sand martins (Riparia riparia) wait in their nest for their parents to bring food

From Africa to Somerset – sand martins lead the way

The sound fell from the sky like notes from a stave; a chorus of twitters, tweets and rattles. Newly-arrived sand martins – my first long-distance migrants of the spring – hawking for invisible insects in the Good Friday sky, above the River Brue on the Somerset coast.

After the long flight from Africa, this Easter sunshine was just what they needed, to bump up their energy levels and get ready for the breeding season to come.

Sand martins are the junior cousin of the swallow and house martin: smaller, browner and altogether less elegant. Yet as the earliest of the three to return to our shores, they have a special place in the hearts of all birders, as they herald the coming spring.

Although that little flock of sand martins didn’t exactly open the floodgates, other migrants are now steadily beginning to appear. Later that day, along the River Parrett foreshore, I came across a fine male wheatear hopping jauntily across the billiard-table turf.

He was close enough for me to admire his smart, grey and ochre plumage, dark “bandit mask” and, when he took to the wing, that snow-white rump – the origin of the wheatear’s name (from the Anglo-Saxon for “white arse”).

Two days later, on a family walk along the lanes behind my home, we spotted a lone swallow: a true pioneer, gambling that he hasn’t misjudged his return, and that the weather stays fine enough for him to find sufficient food.

Swallows are the masters of avian navigation: this bird will find his way back to the very place he was born. There, he will perch on telegraph wires, occasionally sallying forth to grab flying insects, and patiently waiting for his mate to arrive.