Cley Swifts

Just returned from a few weeks away, so here's the latest update. Box 1's single egg has now hatched (we never did manage to get the second egg back into the nest as one of the parent birds was always in residence). Both parents are still present, thankfully, and the youngster seems to be doing well. Here they are yesterday evening, one parent on each side of the youngster:

We left box 3 with one adult rearing three youngsters, the partner having disappeared quite early on. Sadly this was too much for one bird to cope with and one of the young had obviously died whilst we were away. The other two seem to be doing well though, in fact we thought they probably would have already flown by the time we returned, but they are still here, with the single parent still caring for them.

Here they are yesterday afternoon while the parent is out feeding:

As far as we can tell, none of the other boxes have been visited by other swifts. We live in hope for next year!