We are now waiting to see how many of our house martins will return to their nests on our house. In the 16 years we have lived here, the numbers have been declining. In the early years we had as many as 7 nests, but last year there were only two. The number of birds surviving the long journey from South Africa is going down quite fast.
There is an old man, who comes and counts the nest every summer, he has been coming as long as we have lived here. I don't know how many villages he visits, but every year we think perhaps we will not see him again, as he is getting very old, but every year he appears again. Only now it is his son or his granddaughter who drive him around.
