Swifts & Things

It’s just over a week now since my Swift chicks hatched and from what I can tell everything is looking good, from the offset one parent bird would remain in the nest with the young while the other was out collecting food before swapping over.

Over the last few days I’m beginning to see more instances where the chicks are left alone while both parents are out finding food. I’m guessing as the chicks get older then these times will also increase.

Moving on to new prospecting birds, my two none breeding pairs are both still roosting in their chosen boxes every night. The good thing about these new birds is they can be very vocal during the day when inside their boxes which helps with getting the prospecting birds attention. This means I haven’t really been playing their calls via the speaker half as much this year and to be honest I think it’s no longer needed.

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I’ll also touch on my observations of the prospecting birds, it seems like they have various stages of prospecting from what I can tell. On my house in the mornings it begins with mostly birds screaming with fast fly by’s at low level. Then as the morning progresses they become more slower and take a direct approach to the eves with the odd bird touching down before it becomes an all out assault. I then have multiple birds checking boxes and the house, clinging on for a second or so before then letting go, this can last up to 30 minutes and is amazing to watch.

What is interesting though is I have not seen one bird go in any further than just poking their head and having a look. So my guess is these birds will be much like my none breeding pairs that arrived in June this year and are scoping out new nest sites but are too young/not ready to commit to nest building. If this is the case then next year should see these birds return albeit earlier and hopefully take to more boxes in June, like this year’s birds have and then begin their nest building.

This would also make sense I think as it’s a new colony with birds of different ages/maturity, it will have a cross over of some birds breeding, some nest building and then the I’m just having a look bunch, who incidentally are the most spectacular to watch.

Same day update

Just happened to be doing something out the front of my house and looked up as you do when your house is full of Swift boxes 😂 and see a new bird casually eyeballing me from box number 4. I already have none breeders in box 3 so it’s looking good for the front aspect now.

So four days ago my wife’s sister discovered two nestlings on her doorstep, one bird had already died but one was still alive. Not knowing where its nest was (most likely in the eves of her house) she picked it up and took it with her to their shop where it spent the whole day I’m guessing without any food before she handed it to me.

Don’t get me wrong I like my birds but I’m not so sure I like the idea of being responsible for something so small and fragile and part of me thinks you just have to let nature take its course at times. Still it was in my hands now and I had to try and help it somehow so grabbed some live food on my way home(mealworm and waxworms) and began feeding it. Once home I made a makeshift nest in a tupperwar container and dug out an old plant propagator that I thought could help keep its temperature regulated. Initially it wouldn’t gape for a feed so I had to ease its beak open and feed, this was from around 17:30 and I continued through til 02:30 as it had gone so long with out food.

I then tried to get some sleep thinking it would no way last the night before waking at 06:00 completely knackared😴 only to discover it was still alive.

I then did some research guessing it was most probably a House Sparrow and what was the best approach in hand rearing the little fighter. Finding out what food was best I then supplimented the live food with crushed soaked catfood, hard boiled egg and powdered egg shell and also ordered some vitamin supplimented.  I continued feeding every 30-40 minutes through its second day and it appeared to be responding well but then refused to eat for a period of four hours and to be honest I thought it was giving up, only to begin feeding once again 😅 That night the last feed was around 22:30 before we both retired.

Day 3 and up at 07:00 it was ready and waiting for its first feed now gaping quite well when a little noise is around its makeshift nest and today I could already see a difference in growth with some tiny pin feathers beginning to form(gotta be doing something right)

Feeding resumed again at regular intervals and it even came with me for my late shift at work where it became a bit of a star with my colleagues.

Now it’s day 4 and it’s business as usual with the feeds and other than my daughter complaining of the smell of hard boiled egg coming from the fridge it’s still going strong and time will tell if this tiny thing now dependant on me will make it all the way🤞

Day 5

So I will try and update this post daily with the progress of the nestling, feeding resumed just after 7am this morning and all appeared well with some more growth visable and definitely more eye visable especially when feeding. Quite frequently makes little chirps in between feeds.

Day 6

Bit of a funny day  so far, it just doesn’t seem as perky as yesterday, no chirping or frantically trying to feed and to be honest I’m not sure if it’s beginning giving up. Since getting home from work however it has appeared to perk up a little bit more.

I also came across this little fledgling on my drive home from work today hopping in the road, so had to stop and put it up  and into the foliage to give it a fighting chance.

Day 7

Still fighting and feeding and looking quite a bit fluffy and feathery, it’s also been doing some flapping and preening motions to so all good today.

Day 8

Another day another feed, things are still going ok with the nestling, still taking food eagerly.

It’s also beginning to show more interest in itself having the odd flap and preening it’s new downy feathers.

It’s eyes are now often open and I’m guessing nows the time it will begin to imprint on me, I am trying to keep all contact it has purely on a feed basis but the likelyhood is it will still imprint. Although I do have a healthy population of sparrows around my house with youngster so if it makes it to fledging then I will do all I can to introduce it into that population.

Day 9

Day nine and another shift at work for the nestling, that’s its 5th shift this week and all I can say is, its a good job my colleagues are a laid back bunch 😂 It’s still feeding well and looks like it’s growing as it should.

Day 10

It’s made it to double digits 😂 and on its second week at work, like me I swear it’s happier once we get home. Not much to report to be honest, things still appear to be going ok.

Day 11

Been very chirpy today and practically standing and projecting itself up like a rocket at times when it comes to a feed, it’s feathers appear to be filling out a little more each day too. Today was also spent knocking together a small outside cage in preparation for when it’s nearer fledging and getting it accustomed to the world and other Sparrows.

Day 12

Had a little catastrophe today, after buying some small brown crickets to incorporate into the odd feed, I went and left the lid slightly open 😂 thankfully I managed to round up all the escapees without any of my family noticing, or at least I hope I have 👀.

On the Sparrow front, feather growth still continues to look good and I’m hoping come next week it’s somewhere close to fledging as I have ten days annual leave which would tie in nicely with attempting to integrate it back into the Sparrow population 🤞.

Day 13

Well I had the morning off duty today and left it on my good wife’s hands while I worked an early shift, I don’t think it missed me.

Day 14

Hmmm so it’s taken me two weeks to realise this isn’t a Sparrow but a House Martin, some bird watcher I am 😂 in my defence I’ve never seen House Martins at my Sister in laws House or ever had the pleasure of hand rearing one. I just need to do some digging now and maybe try and find a rescue centre that could give it  a better chance as I’m sure it would fair better in the company of other House Martins.

Still every good story needs a plot twist thrown in 😂 I’m hoping as it’s diet was still made up from a large portion of insects its health hasn’t been dramatically affected. House Martins fledge around 23 days so at least it will have some extra time to get to fitness with those that know a little more than I.

After doing some digging I was recommended a place called Follys Wildlife Rescue in Tonbridge, its a good hour and a half drive from mine but if its worth it to make sure it has the best chance of making it.

Day 15

It’s my final day of caring for this little champion and if its taught me one thing in life then I guess that would be don’t ever give up. This bird had more than likely fallen about 4 metres onto concrete (its nest mate died) then spent 8-9 hours without food before it was handed over to me. Despite all the shit life threw at it in its tiny little life it still managed to hang on and survive and to add insult to injury, it even had the embarrassment of being called a House Sparrow too😂

It will be nice to have some normality back in my life and not plan everything around feeds but I wouldn’t change anything, I’m not so sure I want to do it again mind you although I am a sucker for any animals in need so never say never.

Day 16

It was the last morning I got to see my feathered friend looking up at me eagerly waiting for it first meal of the day and no sooner had it eaten we set of the 60 mile journey to Follys Wildlife Rescue just outside of Tonbridge, after a couple of pit stops to feed on the way we arrived an hour and a half or so later.

The rescue had a Covid drop off system in place which meant filling out some paperwork before placing your wildlife in the crate before ringing the bell for assistance. A worker then came out and collected the little thing, we had a brief chat and I asked if its possible for an update but due to the current situation there they have not been updating on any rescues, although she would ask if her manager if its possible on this occasion. She did also say there are another three House Martins of similar age it will be nursed with.

So that was that, I may never know how it may fair in its next stage of life but if its first sixteen days of life are anything to go by, I’m pretty damn sure it’ll soon be skipping through the sky on its way South for winter in no time.

Update

So on the same day I dropped it off, I sent a nice message via Facebook to Follys Wildlife Rescue asking if I could still get updates, I also sent the little time lapse video below.

Two days later I received a nice message back and it sounds like the little House Martin rescue is doing just fine.

Bit of a late update (I need to post more I know🙄) but I’m happy to say I can confirm I currently have two Swift chicks being cared for by both parents🤩 I noticed last week a bit of egg shell inside the box and after close examination of previous footage, I picked out the new bird on the 15th of July.

Since then one adult remains in the nest until the other returns with a feed and then swapping over. By all accounts I’ve heard this is quite late for chicks but hopefully they will still go on to fledge without any issues.

On the prospecting front It’s definitely been a bit of a patchy one this year as I do seem to remember more days last year where I had good numbers checking the eves however this year’s weather has been up and down which I guess has had a large effect on the birds. Over the last week the weather has been alot kinder and settled though and with it the activity around my house has improved with more prospecting birds. We have been dazzled with some spectacular displays with most boxes on the house having a Swift cling on briefly before flying off, I do have some videos I need to edit first before posting so for now some pictures I took on just my phone to give an idea of what it’s like.

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It’s been just over a month since my last post and an update on the Swift situation so far. My resident birds in box 15 layed their first egg on the 6th of June however they appeared to show no signs of incubating and didn’t lay any more eggs either, so excitement soon turned to disappointment.

Moral was boosted just a week later when a few more birds began to show up and immediately began prospecting mainly the front aspect. I’m inclined to think it was the same bird from last year as it was in and out of the same Zeist box that had single bird roost on occasions late July last year. Although after a day of going in and out of the adjacent box it finally settled on the experimental box I made to fit above my window.

This box lacked the depth of my other boxes so to fit over the window lintel and consists of just base and sides, with the roof being the existing eves on my house. Sparrows had already began nesting and even with visable nesting material poking out at times the Swift still took up the box and was joined by a second bird and the pair have roosted every night since.

Now back to my resident pair and their failed egg, on the 24th June I began to see that more often than not a bird remained in the box, this continued through the 25th and as I write today a bird still remains inside. On occasions for brief periods the box is empty but it does look like  they may have laid again and have started the incubation period. So fingers crossed 2020 could still be the first year I have  a clutch of Swift on my house 😁.

Also more birds continue to prospect with quite a bit of interest on the rear aspect that currently has no boxes occupied with Swift, would be nice to fill a few more before they leave 🤞.

Well at 13:50 today I had a Swift go in box 20a that has since left and just gone back in now at 15:20. This is another experimental box that’s a one up one down that utilises the eves for the top box with the main box sitting beneath.

It’s been a week now since the Swifts returned to their box on my house. The first day see one bird easily navigating back inside and quickly enjoying a well earned rest, the other bird however spent all day attempting to enter with no success. It became frustrating to watch as it would go mostly to the sides of the box and at one point it managed to find a gap that led onto the top of the box. This in turn led to me having to embark on a rescue mission as I could see it attempting to get out via too smaller gaps between a section of wood I’d put on top to fill the void between the box and roof.

Later that evening it finally found its way in and that evening both birds roosted in the box together.

Over the next few days they had been coming and going frequently throughout the day and either resting, preening or doing some remedial work with nesting material. With every night both birds roosting up between 7 and 8pm then leaving around 6am.

Friday the 22nd of May however see the arrival of a third bird that entered while the other two birds were already inside. This then turned into a battle mainly between the same two birds that lasted just under three hours. I’m guessing the resident bird ejected the interloper that left one exhausted bird in the box for sometime after before it ventured out again.

This then got me thinking as I’ve read these sort of encounters can be fatal in some cases, so why did it occur? I know prospecting birds will carry out wing banging maneuvers on nest sites to gage occupancy and I guess to avoid such encounters. I have seen this on my house last year but these were prospecting juvenile birds in June. The new bird had arrived slightly later but from what I have observed it was not part of second wave of juvenile Swifts as they have still yet to arrive.

So my theory is one half of last years resident birds did arrive back last Sunday however with a new bird in tow. Which would then explain the confusion and difficulty it had in entering its box, if that was indeed its first encounter with it. Five days later a third bird arrives and my guess is, this is the other half of last years resident birds. As it doesn’t go to any other box on my house (21 empty boxes) but to the only taken box. Quite a coincidence! By now the other two birds have been roosting and bonding over the previous days so the later bird gets attacked and evicted. I’ve read that Swift are monogamous and pair for life but I’m wondering as these birds are relatively young and still yet to breed that this could have an impact on this situation, maybe better people than I have the answers.

So after seeing my first Swift back in April there was a slow increase in numbers over the coming days resulting in a maximum of twelve birds seen in the area on the 9th of May. I did have a few low fly by’s over the days with one bird that clung to my air brick briefly that did have me thinking for a minute it could be one of my resident birds but it never showed any more interest than that.

The weather then took a turn with winds more Northerly and with that a distinct lack of Swift was seen over the coming days with just the odd bird here and there. That was until the morning of the 17th and with the weather considerably warmer with Southerly winds I sat in my garden after a night shift enjoying the sun and watched half a dozen Swifts once again, some gliding high before beginning their low aerial assaults around the houses. It wasn’t long before two birds began multiple low flights past my East aspect and as quick as it had begun, one bird disappeared inside box 15 and the other clinging briefly outside before flying off. Finally my resident birds from last year had made their journey and are back!

It had been ten months and twenty days since the last time I’d seen it roost in its chosen box and it never ceases to amaze me that after they had departed they would remain airborne again until its arrival back at their box

Now the question remains, is this another season of preparing the nest or will this be their first year laying eggs……

I’m a little late in posting this but the Swifts on the other hand were not, they appear to be quite early arriving this year after I see my first on Monday 27th April. I finished the day seeing half a dozen birds with one checking out some eves of adjacent houses.

I’ve not seen any since however and it’s hardly surprising as we have a bit of a wet weather front moving through which I’m sure will affect their movements but it’s lifted my spirits and I’m sure it won’t be long before the sky’s are swarming in screaming Swifts once again.

So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been utilising my days off work to build yet more Swift boxes and also add the odd nest cup to existing boxes I’d failed to do so in my hurry to get them up last year.

Two more Zeist style boxes were added to the NW aspect of the house and three more shoe box style to the NE aspect where my first Swift claimed their nest last year. On the SE aspect I’ve added one box inside the loft space with access via a hole I’ve made through the cavity, after getting the idea from here. https://actionforswifts.blogspot.com/2014/01/internal-boxes-with-entrances-fashioned.html?m=1

Now I did want to add two more of these nest sites however after completing the first one and realising how much of a pig it was to do, I’ve resigned myself to just having one. That being said, its sods law that this will be the one that gets occupied first this year and then no doubt I’ll be scrambling to add more before they leave😂

I’ll go into a bit more depth on what was involved as it’s more than just adding another box under the eves. The aspect pictured below extends a further 6 or so courses of brick up and into the loft, so giving me scope to add an entrence hole through the cavity and then adding boxes inside the loft. This giving a bit more of a natural kind of site a Swift would prospect I would think.

I began by creating the access hole by cutting and shutting with an angle grinder a clay cavity liner I bought from a local builders yard. The entrance depth was slightly larger than I wanted so I closed it up slightly with some morter to approximately 30mm and a width of 60mm, overall size 90mm by 65mm.

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That was the straight forward part, next came the crappy part that involved me laying down in the loft, cramped and dusty, drilling out the morter to enable me to remove one brick from the inside course before then removing a section of the outer course approximately 100mm in size (very finicky).

Now after the dusty crappy job was done I thought it was then plain sailing, just pop the access hole in and point it up with some sand and cement all again from inside the loft…….Nope this wasn’t working, I just couldn’t get the positioning right let alone get a half decent finish on the pointing on the external side. So I had to resort to half hanging out my daughters bedroom window, where I could then get the position and finish I was happy with, all while being tied off to the window frame(home Health & Safety).

It was in fact safer than it sounds as I was able to get some support by standing on the conservatory roof, handy as I’m not a lover of heights. From that point on it was all down hill, I made another box to fix to the inside wall with the only exception of adding a plywood tunnel to bridge the gap across the cavity to the box.

Job done and the hole plugged until they arrive back and with a final count of 22 nest sites(with two occupied) I do feel fairly confident that this one out of all my boxes will get some interest, only time will tell.

Little did I know what began with me doing my bit for the conservation of my local Swifts, would soon turn into a full blown obsession. Most days when I wasn’t at work I’d spend large portions in the garden making note of my resident Swifts coming and goings as well as watching in awe the other Swifts as they maneuver around the houses and more importantly mine. I say that as I’d only intended to put boxes on the one aspect of the house as the back was South facing and the front had telephone wires running parallel to the house and I thought this would hinder any chances of nesting. I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated their desire to find a nest as when the search parties began no part of the house seemed of limits. So that’s when I got busy building more boxes, my friends partner kindly donated me more plywood and before long I went from six nest boxes to a final tally of sixteen, covering all three aspects of my house.

More boxes = more choice, that’s my theory anyhow, I changed the box style on the front aspect to a Zeist type box that has the entrance set on an angled faced box, the template being found at https://www.bristolswifts.co.uk/ as I thought would be the easiest way to dip under the telephone wires to the entrance.

Early July see more birds checking the front aspect and with one Swift deciding on doing things the hard way.

Now don’t ask me why but I’d made two Zeist boxes without adding a roof top to them (no doubt being tight to save wood) and instead just making the base and sides and then slotting under the eaves so then my roof became the top of the nest box. This then turned out to be a bonus for the Swift above as he later went on to climb over the joist through the gap the roof baton created and then down into the box. The funny thing was it would always then leave via the nest box hole but always enter over the joist and its first means of gaining entry. Will be interesting when it returns this year if it continues using both ways.

After a busy few weeks and what I thought had turned out to be a very successful first season attracting Swifts to my house, we felt there was one more thing our new colony needed. My wife who’s an avid crafter, makes bespoke wooden signs from reclaimed wood, so we thought it was only fair to give this new colony its own name.

If my memory serves me it was about the second week of May when I began seeing the return of my local Swifts and with that I unblocked my entrance holes as I’d kept them sealed to prevent any sparrows from taking up residence, I then began playing the Swift calls and waited and watched.

However it wasn’t until June that I started to get any real interest from Swifts which does make sense as they are nest faithful, the birds returning in May would likely be older birds that have already sussed out their nest site and the birds checking my property more than likely last years young needing a new site.This was also where things became a multitude of emotions as birds began to check out my eaves, I’m stood there willing them into the boxes. This is also where I find out that swifts don’t appear to be the sharpest of knives in the draw, often homing in on just about every other part of my house bar where you want them to go.

“Ooh, ooh…… no it’s landed on the air brick”

“Yes! Yes!…. oh no, it’s gone between the boxes”

“What the F……Its landed on top of my Sparrow nest box”

So there it was, this was probably the first time this bird has sat on a hard surface since it left the nest and it’s chose the top of a House Sparrow nest box, when there is a perfectly good Swift box less than two metres away 🙄

Still I was happy nonetheless and then for the following three days it chose to roost here as well as intermittent landing during the day. Then on the 24th June three days after the first touchdown I had my first Swift in the right box. The next two days see Swifts in and out of two separate adjacent boxes but I’m inclined to think it was a pair of birds prospecting both boxes.

Before they finally settled on their new holiday home.