Swifts

At the weekend it was good to see Swifts return to a nest site on the side of the house ,the drive is fairly narrow and the birds made frequent flight trying to line up so they could swoop up under the eaves and into the nest , I had for several years an active nest also under the eaves at the back of the house, access for the birds was straight forward as they could line up directly and just fly up, the nest itself could be accessed from the loft and one winter I installed a CCTV it gave me many hours watching their behaviour , how often the the adults would roost at the nest even when the young where nearly fully grown,gently preening each other in the blackness, with the occasional scream coming over very loud through the TV. Last year the young died very early and the nest was abandoned very quickly and sadly this year the birds have not returned , early last year the nest was taken over by House Sparrows which had young when the Swifts arrived these where found dead having been ejected from the nest presumably by the Swifts, I do not interfere in anyway but perhaps I should have removed the large nest made by the House Sparrows this could have had some effect on the lack of nesting success.

Today I found two broken House Sparrow eggs in late stage of development below the drive nest , in the years past Sparrows where unable to get into either of these sites , as I had watched them trying many times ,being unable to fly up and into the small hole.

Swift numbers are increasing over the house and gardens great entertainment as they wizz past screaming and chasing each other.