Swift Half SWIFTS update - 7th June 2011

• Its now been a while since I gave a "swifts update", but I was waiting to be sure a third egg was not going to be laid, before I updated any followers of our swifts here.
• Well... I can be pretty sure now.
• We are only going to have a maximum of two chicks - no third egg has been laid this time - possibly because the adults are running about ten days behind schedule now (after the battle for the nest space and rights to breed in mind May, after the first female had already laid three eggs).
• The latest clip I've uploaded onto my website, clip number twenty-eight, shows the female and the male adults (the female is the bird at the back left at the start of the clip - she can be differentiated from the male as she has a higher-pitched scream) sharing incubation duties of their two eggs.
• The last time we had eggs being incubated (in mid May) I suggested I'd not upload many clips, if any, until hatching occurred, as there'd not be much to see until then.
• The very next day there was that almighty seven hour fight between an intruding female and our female which resulted in those first three eggs being rejected and the exit from the roof of our original female.
• So I'm reluctant to tempt fate again -but I will.
• These two eggs should (all going to plan) hatch around the 19th and 22nd June, providing both are fertile, neither are kicked out of the nest accidentally or deliberately - and both are incubated well.
• Its fair to say that at present - certainly on the evidence of the last few days, both eggs are being incubated almost constantly by the female - who seems to be left alone in the roof all day.
• The male returns occasionally, to give her a few minutes to feed out in the open sky - but at present she seems to be doing all of the donkey work...
• Anyway - I'll keep recording of course and if something really interesting does happen in the roof before hatching (around 18th June onwards) I'll keep you posted and upload a video or two.
• If nothing particularly interesting happens before then though, a few words from me here should do the trick and I'll give my DVD recorder, PC video suite and You-tube account a few days off, before (cross fingers) we have two little chicks to record and upload video clips of onto my website.