Swift Half SWIFTS update - 14th May 2011

• Just a quick post to confirm that our swifts did indeed lay their third and final egg yesterday, on Friday 13th May - sometime around lunchtime I think.
• Both parents are now taking turns to incubate all three eggs (unlike last year when they ignored one egg*) and the latest clip (clip 18) I've uploaded, shows the male taking his turn to keep the eggs warm. He leaves the roof at the end of the clip and the female returns to the eggs about ten minutes later, to do her bit.
• Generally now, there is always one swift in the roof, incubating all three eggs.
• * Quite often, depending on the weather, swifts will lay 2 or 3 eggs and occasionally abandon one of the eggs - as has happened last year in our roof. Sometimes this is by accident - there's not a lot of space in a swift nest and those wings are very long (and the birds are not very agile, grounded) - which means an odd egg may get accidentally kicked or flicked out of the "incubation chamber". Occasionally though, the swifts seem to make a deliberate "decision" to only incubate two of the three eggs  - this "decision" seems to be governed by the weather and availability of prey. Very sensible, our swifts!
• I (and you now!) can tell the difference between the adult male swift and the adult female swift in my clips, by the rather handy fact that the aduly female has picked up a few white splodges on the ends of both long wings. I don't know what the splodges are, but it makes telling the adults apart very easy!
• In clip 18, you'll not see any white wing dots or splodges - this is the male. I'll try and get a clip of the female tomorrow - so you can see the difference.
• So..... we have our three eggs - laid on the 9th, 11th and 13th May.
• If all three are incubated and go "full term", we can expect hatching to happen on the 29th May, 31st May and 2nd June (pretty-well exactly, but a little dependent on the weather of course).
• Watch this space!