Swift nest camera

[Wowbagger]

Live view of a swift's nest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ZSjt9POdk&ab_channel=TheRSPB

[Wowbagger]

A second egg laid today at about 9.17am.

[Cudzoziemiec]

 

[Wowbagger]

The birds spent between 7 and 8 hours away from the nest today, arriving back within seconds of each other a few minutes ago. You can see what look like lice crawling over the birds' feathers.

[toontra]

It's an excellent stream and very addictive.  Sweet to see the pair preening each other and comical the way they endlessly fight over nest space, alternately nudging each other off.  Will we get another egg this morning??

Between this and the Post Office enquiry stream my days are full 

[Wowbagger]

My thought is that if the clutch is complete, she/they (apparently both parents incubate) would get straight on with it. The fact that they haven't makes me think that there will be another egg. Indeed, at 5.02pm today, one of the birds was waving his/her bum around over the nest in such a way that made me think that another egg was imminent.

[Wowbagger]

When I was watching them yesterday, I though how like nightjars they look - I never realised how wide swifts' mouths are in comparison to their beaks. It makes sense since they are basically used as nets to catch insects.

Then I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodiformes

Together, the hummingbirds, swifts and treeswifts share several anatomical commonalities with their likely-closest extant relatives in the genus Aegotheles—the owlet-nightjars; in particular, similarities are noted between the birds' skull structures.[3]

Smug mode!

[Wowbagger]

Egg number 3 appeared some time since last night.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The birds spent between 7 and 8 hours away from the nest today, arriving back within seconds of each other a few minutes ago. You can see what look like lice crawling over the birds' feathers.

I can't make out the lice, but that might be a deficiency in my eyes and/or monitor. I do remember reading though that the "average" mammal has one or two species of lice at any one time, and the "average" bird three to six.

As for the synchronised return to nest, I wonder if that is triggered by external events eg light levels, or are they in communication as they fly? I presume they can distinguish each other's screeches as we can distinguish people's voices.

[readingjohn]

A quick Google suggests brood size is usually 2-3 eggs, so it's likely that full-time incubation is now in progress

[Sergeant Pluck]

I can't make out the lice

When I happened to check in a couple of days ago, there was one bird on the nest, panting, with 2 or 3 lice attached to an upper eyelid. The lice (or whatever they were) were each about the size of the bird's eye.

[T42]

I can't make out the lice, but that might be a deficiency in my eyes and/or monitor

I couldn't see them until I bumped up the resolution from 480p to 720p.

[Wowbagger]

19.02. Swift arrives back. Louse clearly visible on left side of head. Incubating swift then screams a bit and they leave together.

[SteveC]

I seem to remember that the first birdwatching computer CD we got mentioned lice and swifts. They suffer rather more than many birds.