The Sand Martin is the smallest, most lightly built, member of the martin family and the only one which doesn't build a nest. Instead, it excavates holes in sand banks, creating small, busy colonies. In Britain they are easily identified because they are the only martins which look brown in flight rather than black. They don't have the white rump of a House Martin or the long tail streamers of a Swallow. In south-western Europe they also have to be distinguished from Crag Martins which are also generally brown, but much chunkier and lack the diagnostic brown breast band of northern Sand Martins.

Breeds in riverbanks, lakesides and sandpits. Usually seen over water.

Widespread, although absent in the Northern Isles. One of the earliest spring migrants, with birds arriving from March.

Widespread and numerous in most of Europe.

©BirdGuides 1999