Swift webcam

thank have added to favourites

Thanks Barry, they are on the nest now as it is night, lovley way to see them up close for once.

Wonderful!! Thanks Cerinthe! I will keep my eye on this one

Awesome cam!
Thanks for posting the link.

We don't often see them this close, just look at the length of the wings! As they crawl into small holes to nest they do get stuck sometimes with these long wings of them, fortunately it's only seldom that it happens.

Fantastic cam!
Thanks for posting it Ceri

How terrific, thanks Ceri. You'll have to translate for me

I keep flipping between the cams on that site (even though I can't read any of it ) and saw this on the Peregrine cam. the little ones are so cute!!

looks like she found the camera!

Thanks Ceri for the link...it is truly amazing...and I can still read and understand Dutch, even after all these years ....so it makes it doubly fun for me
Johanna

Hi All,

This is my Family Coming back again after 9 month!!

They came back at the nest (the one I observe 5 years now) at 24th of April :!:
It is very early this year. Normaly we see and hear the first around 30th of April.
Here, in Amsterdam, we call them "the Queensday Bird" because it is a big celebration that day in the city. Mostly the screeming parties are then the sounds of joy, on a terras in the evening, after a long day partying
Lots of work for me to do: finding nest, counting birds, protecting nests and also making sure new nest will be made in new buildings after the old ones are gone.

Thanks Cerinthe for putting the URL of this Webcam here!
Enjoy the cam with this, for me, very special bird :!: :!: :!:

Greetings
Swift

Good news on 10th May from a french swift mailing list.

8th June, 2 young Common Swifts hatched!!!!!

It was a hot day here and it ended with thunderstorms :shock:
You could hear it at the cam too.
Both parents were inside and looking after these little ones.
Before the thunderstorms many insects to find and the Swifts at my town were flying around with hundreds of them.
Nice sightings.
Parents will have food with them in a special place in the beak. Big balls with insect in saliva.
So they can feed the chicks little bits, while there is bad weather and no insects.

Greetings

Swift

direkt in WMP

Thank you for the update. I had lost track of this wonderful cam while watching the Red Tailed Hawks fledge.

The parents aren't in the nest at the moment, so there is a good view of the chicks.

I've been watching them myself today, they start growing feathers. It's a bit amazing to watch all this new life starting.

All peace and calm in the swiftnest today :lol:

How do you keep them quiet? Like this maybe?

I'm so glad when I have such a good pic, because sometimes my pics end up like this .............. :shock:

They are so fast :lol:

Ceri!..they are great pics :)

Not a swift to be seen in the sky, due to this bad weather the younger swifts have all gone. The only swifts to be seen are those who have young on the nests.

Well it is not all that good weather to show how to enjoy these birds in our summers.

The non breeders are not around and that makes it in a way silent.

Had to give excursions in my City, but could not share the joy because of there absence.

The breeding pairs are doing great, many moments still to find food in one day. So thats not that bad.

Waiting for some more nice summer weather with all the non breeders to joy our breeders. Giving us the summer feeling in their screeming parties in the morning and evening.

In this part of Europe the young will fledge between 15th and 30th of juli. 

Still enjoy every moment of the 3 month stay in our Europian Cities!!

Swift

Young birds or animals will always be cute.

looking out of the nest

Sticking it's head under it's sibling's wing

look at the foot

see what a tiny pointy beak

What cutie pies

This morning 19th July at aproximately 9:00am they left the nest, they flew out into the world and off to africa. You can see it at

http://www.beleefdelente.nl/vogel/6

There is also a video of them flying out of the nest. Go to the videos on the site and look for 19 Juli: jongen uitgevlogen

Fly little birds fly!

Thanks Cerinthe, this has been lovely to follow 

These days many young swifts will fly out of their nests and after taking a good view of their surroundings they will fly off to africa, maybe even to South Africa.

It is not always easy for them to start their journey if you see what impossible holes the adult birds fly into to make a nest.

This afternoon I had to go into town, but I did not bother to put on my glasses. I don't see that bad and I had a headache. On my way back home I saw what I thought was a swift. I was not sure at all. That house was given up on a yahoo mailing list as a nesting place and I have looked before, but saw none of the telltales that it is indeed a broodhole.

Later, while I was on the phone with another swift friend, I told him about it and my intention to go back with my binoculars to see what was hanging onto that house.

We saw a young swift who in his adventure to go out of the nest into the world, got stuck. It was hanging with it's body out of the nest and it's wings still inside the hole. It's feet was cluthing in the air in it's struggle to get a balance or a hold onto something.

We didn't know what to do to help this little bird. The first idea was to ring the bell at the house and ask if we could try and free it from the top floor. But it would be terribly risky. This is a very nice and very high house. The nest must be about 11meters high at least. We then decided to phone the fire department and ask them if they can come out and help the swift. They did.

It was not easy to get the young swift out of this distressing position, but the fireman succeeded and a very stressed swift was given to my friend who knows all about swifts and who will look after it and release it soon as it is ready.

One more pic

This was a wonderful story Cerinthe.  I wish I had known eariler.  Thank You

Thanks Ceri, a lovely story with a good ending. I'm glad the swift was okay

A story with a great ending

for you & the Leuven fire-department for saving this cute swift !

thanks for posting and for the pics Cerinthe.