Sunday 31 July 2011

Swift Half SWIFTS update - 31st July 2011

  • It is with not a little sadness (and strangely enough, a fair amount of happiness and pride also) that I can report that early this morning, our eldest swift juvenile fledged from the roof at 42 days old - exactly as predicted (date-wise) when it hatched from its egg, exactly six weeks ago.
  • Clips number 57,58 and 59 on my website will explain all (visually if nothing else) but at present, we are left with the younger of the two swifts (by one day) all alone in the roof. Not even visited by its parents today - though I expect they'll be back tonight!
  • I am pretty sure our second (and last) swift will fledge tomorrow -and as such am recording activity from the roof 24hrs a day at present (internet connection permitting!)
  • I will give a full report on this blog when the last juvenile leaves and after the adults realise they don't have to return to the roof now and can feed up themselves ready for the big push down to the congo.
  • By the way, in case any viewer to this blog (or website) is not aware, Anna and I are moving house in a few short weeks - "Swift Half" will be no more - the swifts that you've been watching (I hope!) this year will be the last from us for a few years.
  • More on our plans soon - but just wanted to report that we are one juvenile swift away from being able to report a 100% success rate for the last two years - and sadness aside (at them leaving), that's a very nice feeling to have....

Swift Half update - 31st July 2011

  • Two sunflowers at "Swift Half" are now taller than all the neighbours' sunflowers - even the fake ones!
  • Moff trap highlights in this warm week - ruby tiger, spectacle, lots of scalloped oaks (a  lot this year), many buff ermines (ditto) and a new moff for the garden  -  a male orange swift (see photo in this post).
  • Plenty of baby palmate newts in the pond, but few adult newts now.
  • Two frogs in the pond still.
  • Brown hawker dragonflies regular visitors.
  • Damsons plump and dropping well.
  • Honeysuckle in its second bloom, as is the lavendar and white valerian.
  • Plenty of bees (all shapes and sizes) on wild flowers and spear thistles, in rear (rear) garden.
  • Mini heatwave expected this week coming - temperatures up to 30C - sparking off a few thunderstorms no doubt...

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Swift Half SWIFTS update - 27th July 2011

  • I've just uploaded clip number fifty-four onto the website, recorded today (Wednesday 27th July) at around 1230hrs BST and uploaded it at around 1700hrs BST on the same day.
  • We still have both nestlings in the roof  -  but only for days now (I think the eldest will leave on Sunday followed by its sibling on Monday - but it could be earlier than that....)
  • This clip, a short clip, shows one of our nestlings (the youngest I think, though its almost impossible to tell) doing a gurt big press up in the nest. Its sibling is still around (out of shot, near the entrance), but won't be for much longer.
  • Both seem anxious to hit the skies very soon indeed....
  • Bear in mind that unlike almost all other species of birds, swifts cannot get on a perch or cliff ledge and really flap their wings repetitively with vigour - they simply haven't got enough space in the nest. Many species of birds even have wee practice flights (maybe just raising themself off their perch or ledge whilst exercising their wings in ample space) - swifts can't do that.
  • When a fledgling swift launches out of its nest space (where it hatched six weeks prior), it is reliant on the fact that its development (regular food from parents), exercising (press ups in a confined nest spot) and instinct (not to mention weather!) is enough to get it airborne and keep it airborne - from that moment on, for maybe three years.
  • It of course has to learn how to hunt for itself immediately also (it won't get taught), how to sleep on the wing, how to keep on the wing, how to navigate to sub-Saharan Africa on its own (it may not be able to follow others) when to begin to move south - and finally, how to return to the very same spot (our roof) in which it was born, maybe two or three years beforehand.
  • Imagine if at 18 years old (having spent that time doing most of your physical development in a dark box, just bigger than yourself at 18, getting hand fed by your parents) you then were told to leave - for good. But you'd only be ok if you left the box and ran, running continuously for three years (bearing in mind you hadn't even begun to walk yet, let alone ran anywhere), learning where food came from as you ran, eating and washing as you ran - even sleeping as you ran - you had to keep running, or you'd die. You also were obliged to run to South Africa in a month or two, keep running around South Africa (eating, washing, sleeping as you ran) and in two or three years time, you had to return to the same box you left behind in the UK with no maps or sat navs to guide you.
  • Easy eh?
  • Swifts make it look that way.....
  • We congratulate ourselves on our technology - sat navs, spaceships etc...
  • I sometimes think though that we have NOTHING on nature!

Monday 25 July 2011

Swift Half update - 25th July 2011

  • I posted of the first flying ant day of 2011 a few weeks ago (July 11th), but the second  flying ant day has just kicked off here this afternoon.
  • We've had a ridge of high pressure building since Friday night now, it looks warm (and dryish) for a week now  - maybe up to 23 or 24c today and right on cue - in mid-late July (any time after St.Swithins day (15th July)) out they come.
  • Our girls have been racing around all afternoon, hoovering hundreds of them up from on or just above our lawn....

Sunday 24 July 2011

Swift Half SWIFTS update -24th July 2011

  • Just a week to go now, before our little swifts leave their nest and head down to the congo, followed by their parents a few days later....
  • Both nestlings are very active, very big and very keen to sit near the front of the nest (out of shot of the camera) - they certainly do seem to like looking outside - and are getting a taste for the outside world now.
  • Both are regularly carrying out their press-ups to strengthen their flight muscles and both are very quick to attack their parents coming in for food!
  • We have had a lovely weekend here - warm and sunny and I hear a large part of the week ahead will provide good feeding conditions for the parents - meaning our nestlings will get the best start they can get by next weekend.
  • I've just uploaded clip number fifty-one onto the website, which shows the sunday tea-time feed for our two nestlings...
  • One week to go - I'm already getting sad!

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Swift Half update - 19th July 2011

  • Just a quickie - finally, finally, finally.... our 9 foot tall sunflower is unfurling its grotesquely hyowge flower head  - and thus we can claim the neighbourhood sunflower competition prize. Some might say again.
  • That shallot.

Sunday 17 July 2011

Swift Half SWIFTS update - 17th July 2011

  • Well.... the chicks are just over a month old now (from hatching) and are probably less than two weeks away from fledging.
  • They're very difficult to tell apart in the nest now - having lost pretty-well all their down feathers.
  • They've both been fed well for the past month and have put on some serious weight - before they take to the skies for their first (three year long) flight - they will really have to get their muscles worked out and lose a little "puppy fat".
  • I've just uploaded clip number forty-six onto the website which shows both fat little chicks very nicely in the nest, during a pretty mixed weekend, weather-wise.
  • Its fair to say that the nest-space itself is getting pretty cramped at night these days - I'll probably upload a video to show that as video clip forty-seven!

Swift Half update - 17th July 2011

  • After a warm, settled, sultry week - the weekend has produced windy, blustery, squally, cool weather, but the garden has survived!
  • Our tallest sunflower now approaches 9 feet and is still trying to fully produce its flower.
  • Our sage has been pretty-well uprooted by the hens, but still survives.
  • My pulmonaria has started its second growth of the year.
  • Our first two water lily flowers have burst out of the pond, with maybe three to come still...
  • The moth trap has bagged a lovely magpie moth (very under-rated I think) and a ruby tiger - and plenty of scalloped oaks and buff ermines.
  • The honeysuckle and lavender have started to flower again.
  • Malu has raided another blackbird's nest in the back garden - giving two three-day old chicks to the hens to eat and ending our blackbird's second try this year.
  • Finally  - a first for the garden at Swift Half - I photographed a brown argus butterfly this morning, roosting on a dead chive flower at dawn.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Swift Half SWIFTS update - 12th July 2011

  • A little less than three weeks left for our wee swiftlies now (in the nest) - very possibly more like two weeks.
  • Both nestlings are looking very "adult" now (or at least juvenile - with pale faces) with smooth heads and primaries very obvious.
  • Both nestlings are exercising their wings vigorously from time to time - I've just uploaded clip number forty-four onto the main website - a clip which you can see the youngest chick (a little older than three weeks from hatching) vigorously exercise its wings on top of its elder sibling!
  • Both parents are still regularly returning to the nest with swollen throats full of midges for their prodigy  -  they seem to drop a feed off every hour on average - depending on the availability of prey of course.
  • The weather here is still warm and relatively dry (all change again I hear this weekend), so both our nestlings are growing at an alarming rate still.
  • There certainly is less and less room in the nest space overnight - all four birds cram into the tight spot from about 2130hrs BST until about 0730hrs BST when the first adult leaves to see if any flies are up and about in the air.
  • Of course, for the next two or so weeks, the space in the nest will become VERY tight - as the chicks become virtually fully grown.

Swift Half update - 12th July 2011

  • Another quickie - our sunflower (largest in neighbourhood) has still to produce a flower, but the stem itself is 8 feet tall now - well over three feet taller than any in the vicinity.
  • Plenty of raspberries in the rear (rear) garden now.
  • Blackberries coming on nicely.
  • Evening primrose now dead (along wth buddleja) but honeysuckle now blooming for the second time this year, after losing all of its original blooms a fortnight or so ago.
  • First yellow leaves on damson trees.
  • Marsh marigold now pretty well died back for the year.
  • Pulmonaria, like a phoenix from the flames has risen from its dead state again (this is normal I hear with this plant).
  • Plenty of comma butterflies in the garden, as well as speckled woods, red admirals and common blues.

General (County) update - 12th July 2011

  • Just a quickie here - yesterday was the first BIG flying ant day in Berkshire this year (we've had a trickle of flying ants all summer, but generally these insects have two hyowge days a year when its warm and sticky  - yesterday was most certainly the first).

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Swift Half update - 5th July 2011

  • Warm and humid (and quite sunny) again for the past few days - but we've had a welcome bit of rain today.
  • All the garden plants (including the trees and marsh marigolds) seem to be already on their way out, foliage-wise! The marsh marigolds are virtually dead (or died back), the buddleja has ended (or died!?) and even the damson trees look like they're about to shed their leaves - and this after June gave us at least average (above average to be fair) rain.
  • I'm pretty sure that with everything starting a month early this year - it might well end a month early also....
  • Pond life has changed a little recently also - gone is the dominance of my palmate newts (a month ago and I would count two dozen without trying - now its an effort to count half a dozen at night) and the frogs have returned (we have at least four now). Its no great shakes that the newts have become harder to see - once they have ensured they have bred, they often leave their breeding grounds, like many amphibians - and become fully terretstrial again.
  • Our largest sunflower has started to produce its flower - I think it'll be an eight-footer again (EASILY winning the neighbourhood sunflower competition -of which I've seen none even go close to peeping over any fence)!
  • We have at least one wren's nest in the front garden, which at least for now, the spostles (cats) have not located...
  • Our cornflowers are doing well though - 15 flowers so far and counting....

Swift Half SWIFTS update - 5th July 2011

  • Almost a week since my last swift update here, but if you've not been following the video updates on my website - a little more detail for you...
  • Both chicks are doing very well - growing like anything at 15 and 16 days old. Both have their eyes open a lot of the time - and both are starting to exercise their wings every so often - even though their wings are far from developed.
  • Last year both chicks left the nest (fledged) separately, each exactly 42 days after hatching so we're still on for the last day of July / first day of August for our two youngsters to leave at present - but at the rate they're growing - who knows!
  • I've just uploaded clip number forty onto the website which shows the younger of the two get fed.