Total nest sites so far this year is now 20
Checked out Ducketts offices at Clawthorpe. The sky was full of Martins churping away and lots of Swallows and Swifts. I spoke with Ed who reckons there are about 8 Swifts on site. Whilst there he showed me where they were using and we where lucky enough to see a couple of birds entering their sites. Now marked off in above photos.
Friday 16th July 2021
We checked out the regular haunts starting with Cocking Yard. Although we had only got a single nest site down for Hangings Farm, I spoke with a resident who always gives us a update on the Swifts and he was able to confirm that there was also another occupied nest site on the opposite side which is Ken's house and called The Twain Cottage and he says it nest about the middle of his property and that this particular site had been used in 2020 and also in 2019, so we will need to update our records with this new information. Sadly birds are missing from the Riggs House this year (2 sites, 1 front and 1 rear).
Moving on and checking to the rear of the Cottage and no to nest activity was seen but at this point the aerial count had got up to 7 and a later return count from here got up to 20 birds.
A brief check on the front of the Royal Cottage never recorded any activity and so it was off to the Manor House and Coaching House. Still no signs of birds using the Coaching House, but did get a bird go into the large hole to the right hand side of the gable end (the one that the Starling sometimes occupies). Whilst we were at the Manor we saw up to seven aerial birds.
Total nest sites recorded so far this year 16 (1 additional tonight with Twain Cottage
Tonights observers were Reg and Bryan.
Next weeks meeting should be showing lots of aerial activity because we are getting near the stage were young birds will be taking to the skies, and its around now we get our record counts.
Our next Swift Meeting is next Friday 23rd July 2021 at 8pm at the Burton Memorial Hall (everyone welcome).