At last, some new swifts in Gilling East!

Swift diary

A brief summary of our colony so far this year.

My first pair (arrived 6th and 7th May) to lay eggs lost them to a tree sparrow on 23rd May- they still haven’t laid a new clutch. Two single birds arrived on 20th and 21st May. I suspect that these paired on 2nd June, now in box 3. So I now have two pairs without eggs. None of last years breeders is paired  with its previous year’s mate- this also happened in 2023 due to mates never arriving. Sadly at the moment we are two pairs down on 2022. But, the last 24 hours has seen younger swifts arrive, offering hope of a recovery.

Well we needed some good swift news here. Yesterday evening the airspace above the village was suddenly full of swifts. There was an arrival of older non-breeders (probably mainly 2-3 year olds) and they quickly descended to fly at incredible pace around the eaves hesitating in nanoseconds by nest box entrances. There were brief cling-ons to entrances too.

After two seasons of very low return rates of established breeders in Gilling East this could be the start of a recovery. Some of these birds could still breed this year if the weather improves, while others may well form pairs and occupy nest sites. This is always an interesting period of the swift season as this second wave of birds is much more experienced than the third wave that arrives in the second half of June. It is now that younger swifts can decide to breed for the first time, though they are well behind established adults, many of which incubating eggs or feeding newly hatched chicks- the young of the these first timers can fledge in August or even September.

The swift prospecting action this morning was frantic and at such times it is hard to know where to look with birds crossing each other’s flightpaths around the eaves at high speed. Meanwhile the established breeders ‘shriek’ from their boxes at the new arrivals.

But the life of a swift watcher is rarely straightforward and as I type cold air is really digging in as a band of rain makes its way south east. The younger birds might well be absent for a few days now until the weather warms up. 

I speculated last year about the cause of the sudden decline of swifts in Gilling East over the last two years- if only we knew why. There are many reasons why species decline. The problem here seems to have been a low return rate of previous year breeders, so we know this is not related to decline caused by lack of nest sites- something else was at play, or was it just sheer bad luck, that is unlikely when several colonies were affected.  There are so many mysteries around swift migration and migration in general. All species fluctuate from time to time and I take great comfort this year from the rise of house martin numbers, for a species’ ability to recover, seemingly against the odds.

For now it’s just wonderful to have more swifts in the sky offering the hope of recovery back to 2022’s numbers.

House martin diary
The colony is doing nicely with all five pairs now incubating eggs. The change to cooler weather has been interesting. House martins change their feeding habits very quickly. At times like this they almost become woodland birds as they fly inches from the tree canopy and glean insects which don’t fly any higher in wet, windy weather. They also noticeably use the shelter of trees and large hedges in which to feed. It’s going to be a testing few days for our breeding house martins but if the worst comes to the worst they will have to abandon their eggs and save themselves.

Spotted flycatcher diary

I’ve been so thrilled to see a spotted flycatcher back in the village. In addition there have been several singing males in nearby Gilling and Yearsley woods. I hope if they nest nearby I can report on a spotted flycatcher nest through the summer. Spotted flycatchers are one of the first birds I studied and sketched in detail. They have seen a catastrophic decline in recent decades. A bird that used to inhabit most churchyards, parks and wooded gardens has vanished in so many former breeding haunts. My recent sightings offer me some hope that there maybe the beginnings of a  recovery happening, at least in this area.

For now I am loving having them nearby and hope I can spend some time sketching them through a breeding season.

I open my studio again this weekend so if you are in the Gilling area do pop in and have a swift chat! More information and directions here https://nyos.org.uk/artist/jonathan-pomroy/

Single swift resting. Waiting for its partner to return- June 2nd.