Collecting Trivia on the seashore

Tarbat Ness, Highlands Before I left, I could not resist dropping down to the shoreline to look for cowrie shells

The number of house martins nesting under the eaves of our house has been the lowest we have recorded in the 28 years we have lived here. The peak of 24 occupied nests was in 1988, and there has been a steady decline since. Last year there were seven pairs but this year just one, despite the fact that there are 12 artificial nestboxes to save the birds the trouble of building their own.

So on the trip to Tarbat Ness I wondered if some might still be nesting under the cliffs near the lighthouse. Cliff nests of house martins, whether inland or on the coast, are now rare, but were commonplace before the eaves of houses became so widespread. I walked to a vantage point above the enticing shoreline to look at the cliffs, and there was that thrill of seeing house martins swooping up from the sea to their nests. Why do they seem so dramatic compared with the ones at home?

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