I was up about at about 7 this morning and the view was like Heathrow airport, only with house martins swirling around above our pool, rather than aircraft landing.

We’ve often seen them in the evening, drinking from the pool. They swoop low over the water and take a sip in flight. I hadn’t realised they also do that in the morning. By the time I’d retrieved a camera, things had quietened down a bit, but there were still individual birds drinking. They are quite unafraid of humans, and I keep meaning to set up a tripod to get some nice sharp photos with a telephoto lens – but these are just grabbed hand-held. Here is a link to someone else who had more success getting photos of house martins, including one of them drinking from a pond.