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!

We have an egg!

Our 'gang' of three has now become a 'gang of five' with the single swift now residing in box 1. So if you see five swifts flying together around our home, they'll be ours!  We're hoping the single swift will find a partner soon. There's been nothing new to report over the last couple of days, other than that the starlings are still occupying box 4 and one was seen to enter box 5 yesterday morning briefly but it didn't stay. The good news today is that box 3 swifts have laid an egg! That was unexpected, we thought box 2 might be the first to start laying, but then again, their nest is so deep and feathery that it would be difficult to see any eggs even if they were there. Hopefully we will have another egg in box 3 by tomorrow morning.