{"id":4287,"date":"2026-03-07T18:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/?p=4287"},"modified":"2026-03-07T21:25:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T21:25:39","slug":"sand-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/sand-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"Sand Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<strong>sand martin<\/strong>\u00a0(<em>Riparia riparia<\/em>) or\u00a0<strong>European sand martin<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0migratory\u00a0passerine\u00a0bird\u00a0in the\u00a0swallow\u00a0family. It has a wide\u00a0range\u00a0in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe and the\u00a0Mediterranean\u00a0countries and across the\u00a0Palearctic\u00a0to the Pacific Ocean. It is a\u00a0Holarctic\u00a0species also found in North America. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America, and the\u00a0Indian Subcontinent.<\/p>\n<p>The sand martin is brown above, white below with a narrow brown band on the breast; the bill is black, the legs brown. The young have\u00a0rufous\u00a0tips to the\u00a0coverts\u00a0and margins to the secondaries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Measurements<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Length<\/strong>: 4.7-5.5 in (12-14\u00a0cm)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Weight<\/strong>: 0.4-0.7 oz (10.2-18.8 g)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wingspan<\/strong>: 9.8-13.0 in (25-33\u00a0cm)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The sand martin&#8217;s twittering\u00a0song\u00a0is continuous when the birds are on the wing and becomes a conversational undertone after they have settled in the roost. The harsh alarm is heard when a passing\u00a0falcon,\u00a0crow\u00a0or other suspected\u00a0predator\u00a0requires combined action to drive it away.<\/p>\n<p>In Britain, the sand martin appears on its breeding grounds as the first of its family, starting towards the end of March, just in advance of the\u00a0barn swallow.\u00a0At first, they flit over the larger bodies of water alone, in search of early flies. Later parties accompany other swallow species, but for a time, varying according to weather, the birds remain at these large waters and do not visit their nesting haunts. The sand martin departs early, at any rate from its more northerly haunts. In August, the gatherings at the nightly roost increase enormously, though the advent and departure of passage birds causes great irregularity in numbers. They are essentially gone from their breeding range by the end of September.<\/p>\n<p>Their food consists of small insects, mostly\u00a0gnats\u00a0and other flies whose early stages are\u00a0aquatic.<\/p>\n<p>The sand martin is\u00a0sociable in its nesting habits; from a dozen to many hundred pairs will nest close together, according to available space. The\u00a0nests\u00a0are at the end of tunnels of from a few inches to three or four feet in length, bored in sand or\u00a0gravel. The actual nest is a litter of straw and feathers in a chamber at the end of the burrow; it soon becomes a hotbed of parasites. Four or five white\u00a0eggs\u00a0are laid about mid-late May, and a second brood is usual in all but the most northernly breeding sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0sand martin\u00a0(Riparia riparia) or\u00a0European sand martin\u00a0is a\u00a0migratory\u00a0passerine\u00a0bird\u00a0in the\u00a0swallow\u00a0family. It has a wide\u00a0range\u00a0in summer, embracing practically the whole of Europe and the\u00a0Mediterranean\u00a0countries and across the\u00a0Palearctic\u00a0to the Pacific Ocean. It is a\u00a0Holarctic\u00a0species also found in North America. It winters in eastern and southern Africa, South America, and the\u00a0Indian Subcontinent. The sand martin is brown above, white below [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":4282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,48,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-143","category-bird-species","category-migrant-arrivals"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/butebirdgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}