Photos and audio courtesy of Surrey Wildlife Trust’s sand martin nest bank project.

A giant 20 metre wide sandcastle has been installed in Merstham to provide homes for sand martins. 

The tiny brown and white birds will find their home at Spynes Mere nature reserve for the first time in 25 years.  Sand martins arrive at the reserve annually in March on their return flight from sub Saharan Africa. Their numbers have plummeted twice in the last 50 years as a result of droughts in their wintering grounds in Africa.

Surrey Wildlife Trust has worked with professional sand sculptors, to create the nest bank complete with nest holes as the Trust’s project manager, James Herd, explains: