Summer garden bird diary

Photo Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Tree sparrow chick begging food from parent
 
Dear garden bird friend!
 
August is here and the autumn migration of birds has started! Actually bird autumn started already around Midsummer when adult curlews started their return migration to their wintering areas. In the meantime the migrations of scoters ja waders have begun which observers on the coasts can see. See the monitoring of waterfowl at Põõsaspea: www.eoy.ee/poosaspea
 
At the moment however the most conspicuous sign of autumn is the goodbye flights of the swifts above settlements.
 
The swift is a bird with an interesting life cycle. The first three weeks they incubate their 2-3 eggs, and after this the chicks stay in the nest for another 6–7 (5–8) weeks. And just now the 8...9 nest weeks are ending. Most swift chicks fledged already at the end of July and beginning of August, some few still  remain in the nest even at the end of August. In the evenings between 20 and 22 o’clock we can see tens and hundreds of swifts in the sky doing their autumn flights. Part of them are locals who still have parental duties to fulfil for some weeks, others are adults who have finished their nesting, together with this year’s young birds, a third group migrants having arrived from the north.
 
The departure of the swift chicks from the nest, be it then the underside of an asbestos cement roofing, an air vent or the nestbox of starlings, always goes unnoticed. How then to know on which date the young have left the nest? The simplest way is to go to listening each night at the nest whether the quiet twittering of the chicks is still audible.
 
The visits of adults also point to chicks in the nest, but the adults may stop their feedings during the last days and the chicks are left in the nest to ”mature”. So the twittering of the chicks is the surest mark.
 
At present only house martins and barn swallows are still nesting, in addition to swifts; for them the second or third clutch is on. Now is the right time to check the garden bird diary and enter into the diary the nesting notices written on scraps of paper or left in memory.
 
In the next few  weeks the movements of birds towards their wintering areas will be gathering force so that the slightly boring July gardens are changing into more exciting ones in August. And surely you will discover new species for your garden list!
 
Wishing all an August with an abundance of birds!
Meelis Uustal
 

Summer garden bird diary coordinator



 

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