2018 - Another Year!

So here we are, another year. There have already been some sightings in the last few days in the UK on the Swift Local Network, so the cameras are back in and ready to go.

During the Autumn we decided to take down the concrete Schwegler swift box 2. It was far too heavy and dangerous, the camera had moved slightly and we were unable to get to it without getting up a ladder and taking it off the wall to make adjustments. Also we might have been able to foster a fallen-out-of-a nest young swift to the pair in that box last year, if it had had an opening door. So it has been replaced with a brand new wooden one, along with box 4 whose door hinges had come unstuck, both made and put up by myself - it's not the easiest thing to try to match up all the screw holes in the  back of the boxes to those already on the wall! Each box has 3 coats of cuprinol and 2 coats of exterior varnish plus roofing felt on the top so I'm hoping they will last a bit longer this time. The entrance holes have been made smaller, to exactly 65mm x 28mm to try to stop the starlings getting in, and they now have a little overhanging 'front porch' which is painted black to mimic an overhanging gutter, and a tiny 'ladder' under the entrance made of matchsticks stuck on with superglue!

 

Sponges were placed temporarily in the entrance holes to stop the starlings and sparrows trying to get in but we have just removed them in anticipation of an early arrival! We wonder what the box 2 pair will think of their new home - or will they even take to it at all? We certainly hope so!

They're still here!

There was a large flock of about 250 swifts feeding around the north scrape at Cley last night (and still some this morning), one of which was taken by a Hobby. Here's a video of them feeding yesterday evening on the reserve:

 
Happily it wasn't one of ours that was taken because last night all six adults roosted yet again. Box 2 were there for a second night on their own despite the last of their young having fledged two days ago, and also the non-breeding pair in box 1 who amazingly are still sticking down feathers in their nest - we have high hopes for their return next year as they're obviously quite serious! Here's a video showing all the swifts last night at bed-time:

  
There are two in box 1, two in box 2 and two adults and two young in box 3. Will they all be back tonight?

One has fledged

One of the three swiftlets in box 2 fledged yesterday morning, so we now have just the two in that box along with the parent birds. The remaining two have been quite active today and doing wing excercises in readiness for fledging. In box 3, the two swiftlets are doing well and becoming more feathered although their eyes aren't open yet. In box 1 we still have the roosting pair of adults, but as there have been no fly pasts of screaming parties recently we suspect they will be leaving very shortly, and nobody has roosted in box 5 since last week. (No videos or pictures today as Blogger is throwing a wobbly, hopefully more next time!).

Two new chicks today

At last we have managed to watch and film a changeover of the sitting swifts in box 3 today and I'm happy to report that we now have two more chicks. It's been difficult to spot what's been going on in the nest so far, as one of the parents has been constantly on the nest since the eggs were laid. Here is the changeover, in which you might get a glimpse of the chicks:

and here is another one, showing the returned parent bird feeding the two youngsters:

Here is a brief video of the two chicks on their own - the parent is just sitting by the entrance watching flypasts:

Things are much the same otherwise, we still have two adults and three youngsters in box 2 and they are showing an interest in the outside world. I haven't seen any wing excercises yet though. Here they are in the nest with the two parents keeping guard at the entrance against any prospectors:

 

Box 1 continue to roost each night but tend to disappear from dawn to dusk. One of their abandoned eggs has been spotted at the side of the box.  There have been several flypasts this morning, at one stage there were 8 flying around whilst two adults were still in the boxes and box 5 has again been visited several times although there is still nobody roosting yet. So, not long to go until the swifts start to think about returning to Africa. We should keep the box 3 ones until around the middle of August though when the young fledge, all being well.  Unfortunately the swift season is all too short!

Eyes open in box 2

I'm pleased to report today that the three youngsters in box 2 have their eyes open now and are beginning to move about the box, or at least one of them is, since only two can actually fit in the nest now! Here they are, showing a passing interest in the small beetle that is wandering about the floor of the box:

Box 3 are still incubating their two eggs, here is a changeover with the sitter fixing some more feathers on the nest:

Box 1 seem to have mislaid their eggs yet again, one being found on the roof tiles below the box so we don't think much is going to happen there this year. Never mind, it's practise for next year, hopefully they'll get it right then!

We've been away for a couple of days so we don't yet know what the situation is with the pair that were prospecting in box 5, one has been seen in there today but tonight will tell whether they are settled and roosting at night. There have been a lot of fly-pasts today at least, so hopefully I shall have good news next time.

Box 1 lay an egg

At last, the pair in box 1 laid an egg this morning. Later on the box was checked again, only to find the egg was out of the nest:

So whilst the birds were out it was placed back in the nest:

Luckily the boxes are all sited next to an upstairs window so we can reach into the boxes without resorting to a ladder every time. Here's the owner sitting on it again whilst adding feathers to the nest, and hopefully the egg will stay where it should be.

Decoy Swift has not had to come out today, (it's been 'perched' by the entrance to box 6 for the last two afternoons) because the good news is that a new pair seem to be interested in box 5 now. We don't know if it was because of Decoy Swift or not but we hope they will stay to roost this evening. Here are two short videos of the interested parties inspecting the box, firstly the finder, and then it brought a mate along to view as well:

 Here's hoping they will move into this very desirable residence permanently!

Doing well

Our young swifts in box 2 are doing well, growing by the day but they don't appear to have opened their eyes yet. Here's a short video of the parent having fed them this morning:

With the current good weather the parents are out most of the day, just coming back occasionally to feed. We reckon that the three youngsters will be ready to fly the nest on around the 30th July. Box 3 are still incubating, the date the eggs should hatch is around the 16th July with any luck. Box 1 are still coming in to roost each night but have not laid any eggs as yet.

More eggs!

The good news today, after yesterday's dreadful weather and our poor swifts having to stay in their boxes all day, is that box 3 have laid two eggs.

We thought that perhaps they were incubating because for the last few days one of them at least has stayed in the box all day long, but today was the first day we could confirm it. This photo taken today whilst they both went out, presumably because they are hungry after not feeding at all yesterday (this foul weather is really bad for swifts because they are not able to get out and feed on insects in the air). Here's hoping that we shall have another two swiftlets in a few weeks time! The swiftlets in box 2 continue to do well, althought they didn't get much of a feed yesterday. Box 1 swifts have been out all day as usual and have not laid any eggs yet.

Still growing

Our three young swiftlets in box 2 are still growing well and will probably be overflowing the nest very shortly. Here's a short video taken this morning:

The two other adult pairs, in boxes 1 and 3 are still roosting every evening, but no sign of any eggs from either of them yet. So, counting the 3 swiftlets we now have 9 resident swifts! It would be interesting to know what happened to the two youngsters that fledged last year – did they return to this area or go somewhere else? That's something we'll never know.  Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any sign of any other swifts showing interest in any of our spare boxes, in fact there's little sign of any other swifts at all, when at this time of year there should be 'bangers' around, (newly prospecting two and three year old swifts that bang against the boxes with their wings to ascertain if they are already occupied).  But we're not into July yet, so there's still a chance.

Our swiftlets have hatched!

Apologies for the short break in transmission, I've been sweltering away in sunny Portland for the last week. Before I left we had a pair of swifts in box 1, a pair with three eggs in box 2, a pair in box 3 and a starling family in box 4. But the good news today is that the swift eggs in box 2 hatched earlier this week and the swiftlets are doing well. We were able to see that there are actually three in there this morning and here is a short video of the parents feeding:

The starlings in box 4 raised four young and they fledged whilst I was away.  Here is one of the young being fed
before they fledged:

The box has now been cleared out and is ready and waiting for some swifts to find it – unfortunately apart from our own ones there doesn't seem to be much activity at all locally, so the rest of the boxes may remain untouched.
The occupants of swift boxes 1 and 3 are still bringing in feathers for their nests but neither has laid any eggs yet....we live in hope!

After box 3 abandoning the two eggs the other day, they have now both disappeared from the nest. They could be lurking under the camera, or maybe they have been tossed out but we couldn't see any sign of them on the ground or in the gutter below the box. But the good news today is that box 3 seems to have found a new partner, so we hope they will settle down together, although it's probably too late for a new clutch of eggs. But hopefully they'll both return next year to breed.

Box 3 newcomer settling in:

We have also seen that there are actually four baby starlings in box 4, but one is usually hidden from view most of the time. They are doing well and growing fast.

Baby starlings in box 4 and two swifts in box 3:

video of the baby starlings:

Box 2 are still incubating their three eggs, and box 1 are spending most of the day out and just coming in to roost, as is the single starling in box 6.

A setback

Yesterday one of the birds in box 3 disappeared and did not come back to roost last night. The other bird has had to go out and leave the eggs un-incubated several times, and has been gone most of today so things are not looking good. Maybe a hobby has had it's partner, but at this early stage there's no way the other one could bring the eggs to hatching and at the same time feed itself.  Box 2 is still incubating and still has a partner right now, and the starling in box 4 is still feeding young -  the most we can see are three. And a starling is roosting again in box 6, maybe it's the other parent of the youngsters. The swifts in box 1 seem to have given up bringing in feathers. It seems that this is a bad year for swifts, several people on the swifts local network are saying that numbers are down to a third of what they were last year, so it's not just us seeing very few in our immediate area. We hope that Box 2 will continue to brood their eggs and raise young.

Below, the seemingly abandoned eggs in box 3, with box 2 still incubating, and the baby starlings huddled invisibly in the bottom of the nest:

The Starlings have hatched!

Yesterday afternoon the starling eggs in box 4 hatched, I think we have three or four, but it’s difficult to tell right now. The sooner they're fledged and away the better! This morning we had two prospectors at the swift boxes, they were trying boxes 1, 2, 3 and 4 which are all occupied, but ignoring boxes 5 and 6 which are empty. Don’t know why that should be but we hope they find them soon. Box 1 have started nestbuilding, they seem to have got the hint at last after our homemade plywood and feathers nest! Boxes 2 and 3 are still incubating.
Here is box 1, having just brought in a mouthful of feathers:

We don't seem to be seeing as many swifts over the village this year and wonder if the constant renovations of old houses and roofs is having an effect? It seems that any swifts in the air around our area are actually our own ones, so we hope they will bring some more in from somewhere and increase our little colony.

Another egg!

Not much has changed over the last couple of days, other than that a pair of starlings started roosting in box 6 and then started building a nest. Before they could get too far we removed the nesting material whilst they were out and put a temporary baffle on the entrance to keep them out until they had moved on elsewhere.

The baffle is now off again and hopefully some more swifts will have a look at it, and also box 5 which has had no interest so far. The other starling is still in box 4, we think it has four eggs. The good news today is that whilst box 2 were out we were able to see that they now have three eggs in their nest.

So that's five eggs that we know about - of course box 3 could also have three eggs but we've been unable to see them as they are constantly being incubated.
Box 1 have made no attempt to build a nest, although they are roosting every night and seem settled, so we gave them a helping hand -  some feathers stuck onto a sheet of thin plywood and slipped it into their box whilst they were out for the day. Hoping this might encourage them to get moving themselves!

Another egg

We still have our three pairs of swifts in boxes 1, 2, and 3. Box 3 already have two eggs, and yesterday box 2 laid another egg, so that's four altogether and both pairs are now incubating. As is the starling in box 4 but we're unable to see the nest as there is so much bedding blocking the camera view! The pair of swifts in box 1 have not started making a nest yet and are mainly using it as a roost.

More eggs

Box 1 single swift  found a partner on the 24th and they have  roosted together since, so this is great news, our 'gang of 5' is now a 'gang of 6'.  Box 2 swifts laid an egg this morning, and box 3 swifts also laid a second egg this morning.

Box 2, single egg laid this morning:

Box 3, second egg laid this morning:

A couple of flight shots of 'our' swifts coming in over the garden: