29th June

We had a visit from Dick Newell on the 26th  June, along with his Swift Workshop clients, to see our swifts as part of their talk which Dick gave at Cley Visitor Centre as part of the Swift Awareness Week. We could just about fit them all into our small living room and we were able to show them the three youngsters in box 3 which were on their own at the time of the visit, but luckily the parent bird came in to feed whilst everyone was there so that was nice for them to see. They also saw Box 1 still sitting on their one egg - there are still two adult birds and the second egg is still out of the nest as we haven’t been able to get it back in.  Box 3 youngsters are still making good progress despite only having one parent to feed them, here they are this afternoon, rather fidgetty presumably because they're feeling a bit warm in today's heat!

missing parent box 3

On the evening of the 22nd June one of the birds in box 3 did not return. So there is just the lone parent there now to bring up the three young. They are making good progress and taking up all the space in the nest now, we just hope the lone parent manages to feed them enough to get them to fledging, which should be around 26th July onwards. We estimate that the egg in box 1 will hatch around the 3rd July. Things are looking pretty dire around here, we are seeing very few swifts and there have been no screaming parties doing fly-pasts of our boxes or entering any of them. We just hope that they do eventually turn up…it’s all very quiet here and if there are no last year's youngsters about it's not looking good for next year. Here are box 3 chicks this morning:

Egg still out...

We're still looking for a chance to get the stray egg back into box 1’s nest. Here’s a video showing the adult bird having found the egg and trying to get it back into the nest but without much success. Unfortunately they have gone a bit overboard with the feathering, using rather large feathers and making the nest rim extra deep...we're still keeping an eye out for both of the adults leaving the nest but really don't think there's much chance of saving the egg now.

Another egg out of the nest

Yesterday evening we looked at box 1 and to our dismay found that one of the two eggs has come out of the nest. We're currently waiting for an opportunity to get it back in there but it seems less likely that we'll be able to as time goes on as one of the birds is always on the nest. We could try putting it back anyway, but risk flushing the sitting bird and losing any hope of the second egg hatching, but we'll keep an eye on it for any opportunity. It may be too late anyway, since the egg has been out of the nest for several hours overnight. Here is box 1 showing the stray egg yesterday evening:

Box 3 are still doing well with their three chicks, the young are growing fast and taking up all the space in the nest now:

Baby swifts

Good news, the eggs in box 3 have hatched. We think they hatched yesterday as there are the tell tale bits of egg shell in the box at the side of the nest. In this video below you can just about see at least two young swifts beneath the parent bird. Let's hope they make it to fledging without any mishaps!

Another egg!

Hooray! Another egg has appeared in box 1 this morning, that's great news. I took this photo whilst both parents went out, so this might mean that another egg will arrive tomorrow and then incubation will start in earnest. Today is also hatching day for box 3...not seen any activity yet but we will keep a lookout from now on.

An egg in box 1!

This morning the pair in box 1 laid an egg. At last! Hopefully there'll be more to come over the next couple of days.

A quick update

Just a quick update to say that nothing much has changed really. Box 3 are still incubating their three eggs, and box 1 still has a partner so that's good, but as yet they have not laid any eggs. Other than that there's really not much activity going on here. We have not had any parties of swifts flying around here, other than our own little colony who tend to fly around in the ususal 'gang of three', while the fourth one is on the nest. Hopefully the rest of our nestboxes will be discovered by some other passing swifts at some stage.