A new pair arrives

 Yesterday evening a newcomer entered Box 6 and spent a while in there exploring, but later left. 

Then this morning it brought its partner along to have a look and it seems to approve, so we have high hopes of this new pair taking up residence. 

 

The other news is that we have another egg in Box 1, so hopefully one more to go!
 

 

 

 

Our first egg.

We have our first egg at last! Laid this morning n Box 1. We hope that they will continue to lay for the next couple of days, hopefully we shall have three and then they can start brooding.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The nest cup is quite deep this time as they have brought in extra feathers so hopefully the egg will remain in the nest and not roll out elsewhere! Box 3 have still not returned so we think they are not going to do so now. 

No-one else has arrived.

Well, our two swifts in Box 1 are continuing to roost  nightly, and bring feathers in during the day so we hope that we may get our first egg shortly.

Meanwhile, there has been no sign of our long-term pair from Box 3 so it looks like they're not going to return, which is very sad after the several years that they've been with us. We can only hope that we'll get a new pair in the second wave of arrivals...if that happens... who knows these days? Box 1 have been doing their usual screaming flypasts regularly, quite often with another pair in tow, so four of them and maybe these extra two will take up residence at some stage. 

Our second swift has arrived.

Our second swift arrived yesterday afternoon and has now settled in nicely, with both roosting in Box 1 overnight. Swift number one went out briefly and collected a new feather to add to the ever-growing pile. Here they are last night:

 and here they are this morning before they went out for the day:

We are now awaiting the arrival of our long-term pair from Box 3, no sign of them yet but hopefully they will arrive over the next couple of days.

Our first one arrived home!

Our first swift arrived home to Box 1 yesterday evening, hooray! About a week or so late this time but it's a start and we are now awaiting the arrival of its partner, along with the pair from Box 3. Here's a short video taken this morning, huddled up in its feather duvet -  it's obviously waiting for the weather to warm up a bit before it ventures out again....

Still no swifts yet....

There has been no sign so far of our swifts returning, although a few have been seeing flying over the reserve/over the village/over neighbouring houses. We still live in hope but in the meantime, here's a list of our previous arrival dates:

2025 3rd May 

2025 11^th May 

2023 10^th May

2022 9^th May

2021 7^th May

2020 3^rd May

2019 10^th May

2018 8^th May

2017 10^th May

2016 6^th May (the first year of successful breeding)

As you can see, 11th May is the latest that they've arrived, so today's the day...hopefully!