Well, they weren’t lying about the heatwave were they! Luckily it isn’t boiled eggs we’re discussing this evening, but the exciting news we wait for every single year, which is that today, our first Osprey chick of the 2026 season hatched. Not only that, we think it was a world record breaker in as much that it had barely started chipping out of the egg before all of a sudden it was out and a fully hatched chick had emerged. This first hatching is right on cue (if not several hours early), and paves they way for hopefully the next three to hatch over the coming week. The first feed was at 16:50 and it seemed to get a few fishy chunks down its throat. If you haven’t tuned into our Osprey nest cam before then firstly….what the hell have you been doing for the last 4 years?! and secondly you can watch all the drama (hopefully not too much) unfold live here: https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey-news/osprey-webcam-2025-update/

Our second bit of good news is that our new live Swift Nest Cam now has a pair of Swifts back! The first of the pair arrived back over a week ago and was using the box to roost in at night, as we anxiously waited to see if it’s mate would return. There’s definitely been a hold up of Swift, with many sites across the country reporting low numbers and late returners. Thankfully, just as the weather cleared yesterday it allowed an arrival of Swift to reach the UK including the mate of our already present adult. The pair are now back using the box top roost in, and all being well eggs should be laid some time in the coming weeks. We’ve never had a Swift nest cam before, so this is going to be incredibly educational for us too. One of the grim things you’ll notice is the horrid ‘flat fly’ that use Swifts as hosts, and can sometimes be seen crawling around the nest box. A “flat fly” on a Swift is a colloquial term for the Swift lousefly (Crataerina pallida), a species of parasitic, blood-sucking insect. They belong to the louse fly family (Hippoboscidae) and are highly specialised hitchhikers that live almost exclusively in the plumage and nests of Common Swift. Ergh!

You can watch our new Live Swift Cam here: https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/swift-box-cam/