The 2013 Nestbox Diary

4 June - I'm only just sorting myself out after returning from Cornwall on the 2nd and have yet to extract images from the recordings made during our absence. It was very frustrating to find that the webcam had failed within a day of our leaving home. However, it does seem to be behaving itself again now.

During much of the time that we were away the country was plagued by cold, northerly winds which clearly had an effect on nesting timings, from the Choughs down on the Lizard to our Swifts.

With conditions improving last week the pair in SW(le), with their ready made nest (thanks to the Sparrows) did manage to produce two eggs, on the 26th and 29th May. In contrast to the , the pair in SW(ri) are continuing as before we left on our trip, with visits throughout each day, and some bits of feather/down brought in , but no eggs so far. I will be adding some images when I have chance to extract them from the recordings I've made.

As far as I can tell there have been no visits by Swifts to the other boxes on the house, although I will need to go through many hours of video recordings to confirm this. There are at least eight other Swifts spending a great deal of time flying over us at low altitude each day, with up to six making high speed, screaming passes through our driveway and those of the neighbours' houses where I have put up Swift boxes. I'm optimistic that at least a couple of pairs may be taking advantage of these.

5 June - On a bright, sunny morning the Swifts in SW(ri) have produced their first egg.

I cannot be sure of when the egg was laid, but I saw no sign of it in the early morning as the pair moved about in the nest (I need to try and boost the lighting provided by the IR LEDs, a job I should be able to do in my loft).

However, for the best part of half an hour from around 7.20am the pair remained close together, much of the time with the male covering his partner with an out-stretched wing in a way that really does evoke a touch of human emotion to the scene.

Then, at 7.50am the female moved towards the exit just enough to reveal the egg.

Both birds remained in the box for the next couple of hours, the egg being uncovered numerous times as they moved about.

Then, just before 10am I saw the pair preparing to head out of the box,

and moments later they left, providing the first clear view of that egg.

It's one of those times when I want a zoom lens on the camera, or a second camera that concentrates on the area used for the nest. The latter option is one that I may well try setting up in one of the boxes ready for the 2014 season.

The eggs in SW(le) are being incubated more or less continuously, and I've yet to sort out images of them.

6 June - The sunny weather continues, and there are frequent screaming passes by our local Swifts, but there is no sign of any interest being paid so far in the remainder of our Swift boxes.

In SW(ri) the pair spend a lot of time close together this morning, but when they left the box there was no addition to their family.

I have still to sort out some images from last week, but here are the two eggs in SW(le) as seen this morning.

7 June - On a dull, wet morning (no doubt because I topped up the big pond yesterday evening!) the Swifts in SW(ri) have produced their second egg,

which I first caught a glimpse of soon after 11am.

In the early afternoon the cloud cover started to break up and it became much brighter. Perhaps in reaction to this both Swifts left SW(ri), giving this first unobstructed view of the two eggs.

To give an idea of scale in pictures, a Swift's egg is about 25mm (1 inch) long and 16mm across.

12 June - Nothing new to report from our Swift boxes, with the two pairs of eggs being incubated, although those in SW(ri) are being left unattended from time to time. This happened for a while last year without any harm coming to the chicks.

The only other activity picked up by the nest box cameras involves the 'resident' Sparrow rooster in SW(up) every night, and the occasional visits by Sparrows to the boxes at the front of the house.

The Sparrow boxes at the side and rear of the house are busy places now. At the beginning of the week I found a discarded shell from one of their nests, and yesterday there was a dead chick on the ground under one of the Sparrow terraces.

There are up to sixteen Swifts flying over us each evening now (in addition to 'my' two pairs), but so far I have been able to confirm a pair in residence in just one of the four pairs of nest boxes that I put up for my neighbours.

After an all too brief summer spell last week, the weather has returned to that cool, grey state that seems to plague us too often these days. This afternoon the cloud base dropped lower, bringing continuous rain or drizzle into the evening - the British Lawn Tennis championship season has begun!

17 June - The first chicks hatch. The trouble with being distracted by other things is that you are much too likely to miss important moments, and I seem to have done just that.

It looks as though the pair in SW(le) are now the proud parents of two chicks!

This rather poor image shows an adult attending to the first chick at 10.15am yesterday.

In this second image, captured seconds later the second egg is visible, and still intact.

In this image from this afternoon it is just possible to make out one of the chicks immediately to the left of the egg shell. As the adult moved about I could also see glimpses of a second chick, but not enough to capture an useful image.

My recording setup is still in 'holiday mode' which gave priority to length of recording time available rather than quality. Tomorrow I may rearrange things to provide decent images from the two active boxes.

18 June - On a mild but grey day there has been quite a bit of Swift activity over us with individuals coming to the entrances of the two occupied boxes on numerous occasions.

This has unsettled the parent in SW(le) and I was able to grab this image of the chicks when he/she approached the entrance just after another Swift had looked in.

And a closer look when their parents were both present but at the other end of the box.

I watched the driveway for a short time this morning, and in addition to 'banging' on the occupied boxes, a couple of the Swifts also peeped into the Sparrow boxes. However, so far Swifts have not shown any interest in visiting the Swift boxes at the front end of the drive, despite the upper box having been used previously. In an effort to redirect the birds to these boxes (and possibly the ones at the front of the house) I've switched on the Swift calls CD for the first time this year.

I must get on with replacing SW(up) and SW(lo) with a pair of side by side boxes (matching those I put up for my neighbours) before the 2014 season. When I do that I will also move the loudspeaker box to the front of the house, next to the new set of four boxes.

19 June - I've had no chance to process any video images yet, but there's great news from the new boxes at the front of the house - there have been Swifts making repeated visits to two of them.

During the day all four new boxes were visited multiple times, and tonight at least two of the boxes are occupied by at least a single Swift.

And from SW(le) a chick update - not the sharpest image but it does at least provide an idea of how much has changed in the last 24 hours.

Click on images to see larger versions