Artificial Sand Martin Nest Box

An artificial sand martin box, financed by a cash grant from the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust to the Austwick Field and Local History Society has recently been successfully completed and erected on private land adjacent to Austwick Beck, just downstream of the Little Bridges.

The box’s design is based on a version developed by Flinn Hitchcock based in the Scottish Borders. It provides 12 removable nest boxes, with further provision for another 6 boxes under a possible Phase 2. Each box contains a 100 mm diameter pipe with sand inside (to mimic a natural site in a sand cliff) and is surrounded with sand for sound insulation.

The nest box is now in its final position and will shortly be fitted with a permanent oak plaque that says:

Funded by grants from Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust and managed by the Austwick Field and Local History Society, and with thanks to the landowner, the craftsman who constructed the box and to the Austwick volunteers who installed the box on its current site next to Austwick Beck. August 2025

Adult sand martins (Riparia riparia) are one of the earliest migrants to return to Britain, visiting between March and September. Adults are sandy brown above with whitish underparts and the characteristic brown band across the chest.

Sand martins typically reconnoitre their next year’s nest site in the autumn before they migrate to Africa for the winter. If the conditions are right they may return next spring and colonise the nest and lay eggs. Their natural nest sites in the banks of streams and rivers and increasingly vulnerable to flooding-particularly flood flows in summer which are becoming more common due to the effects of global warming. A recent BBC CountryFile programme featured a bigger artificial box in East Devon that waited 10 years before the sand martins decided to adopt the boxes, but which are now proving very popular.

Our thanks to David Baker of Austwick who constructed the box, to Trevor Brown, Ronnie Lardner, Stephen Wright, George Gooch, Alex Rigby and Alex Pilkington who helped with locating the box, to the landowners who kindly agreed to house the nest box and to the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust who funded the materials for the box.

Once sand martins hopefully occupy the boxes in next few years, the Society will be seeking sponsorship of nests by individual AFLHS members.

The Austwick Field and Local History Society, August 2025