Surprise! Surprise!

Young Swift #3 appeared today!

I spent most of today, from around 8.30am working in my garden, then I went in for a late lunch until around 3pm. In all that time I saw no Swifts, so was beginning to think the adults may have decided to head home to Africa.

Imagine my surprise then, when I came back out at 4pm to see this small face of  yet another young Swift looking out at me, obviously looking for the adults to return with food, so I'm pretty sure this is youngster #3.

* * * * *

I was a little bit concerned that I hadn't seen any Swifts around all day, so I decided to spend the rest of the day working in the garden so that I could see if they returned. 

Well, for the next SIX hours not one Swift appeared & I was beginning to think they might have deserted this youngster, perhaps frightened off by the stormy weather we'd had on Saturday.

However, at around 9.50 on this quiet, cloudy evening, as I was beginning to think it was just too dark for them to return, all of a sudden, from nowhere, there was a loud woosh & I could just make out one adult shooting straight back into the nest box. I waited for a further 20 minutes to see if it was going to emerge again, but no sign, so I decided to end my vigil., but just as I was walking away, there was another woosh & I just made out the other adult shooting straight back into the nest box, too.

Needless to say I was absolutely delighted to see that both parent birds were still looking after this last young Swift.

* * * * *