No show

No sign of swifts here yet. Everything seems a little later this spring, but I can't see how a chilly pre-spring here in Wales can have much influence on departure time for birds that are coming all the way from Africa. 
When they do get here 'our' swifts are going to be faced with a bit of a housing issue because their nest site over our bathroom window seems to have been taken by a pair of house sparrows. It will be interesting to see how that one pans out.

Good neighbours?

It's probably a little too late in the year to be giving nestboxes their MOT, but yesterday I noticed that my sparrow 'terrace' box was looking the worse for wear. It's old and the roof had a crack in it that has to be letting the rain in.
So, out came the ladder and down came the box. Getting the roof off wasn't easy as the screws were badly rusted and when I took it off I wasn't sure what I was going to find inside; I knew it had been used last summer, but didn't now whether chicks were raised successfully.
But it turned out to have two nests inside - one a neat, little sparrow nest and another, a wasps' nest the size of a grapefruit. Quite a surprise. 
I wonder if the sparrow chicks found that all that buzzing going on next door kept them awake. Or maybe it was soothing and lulled them to sleep.

Getting better

I'm being watched. As I come and go to the backdoor and even when I'm in the kitchen I'm under constant observation - by a male sparrow in the hedge.

Photo: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos

A pair of house sparrows are nesting in the eaves over our bathroom window and the kitchen is on the floor below. It means that when you're in the kitchen they're coming and going throughout the day.

The female keeps busy ferrying invertebrates to the nestlings, I watched yesterday as she 'tenderised' a beetle on the concrete of the drive before taking it to the nest. The male's role seems mostly to be watchman; it sits in the hedge chirping away and keeping an eye on us, the dog and cats.

Good to know that nationally the house sparrow's population seems to have stabilised after years in decline. Apparently sparrow numbers are now at a six-year high.