Several swifts were busy collecting nest material along the coast this afternoon. They were flying close to the cliff face, or just a few metres above it, picking up small amounts of aerial material (e.g. bits of grass or gull body feathers) in the breezy updraft conditions. One particular bird, carrying a white feather, gave an initial impression of having a white patch on its underparts!
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| Most of the nest material being caught in the updraft appeared to be small body feather fragments |
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| Hopefully they will have a successful season this year, last spring the weather was poor much of the time |
Several house martins were busy nest-building in crevices under a small arch on an offshore stack. A small colony of 30-40 razorbills that breed in other crevices on the stack appear to have had a very poor breeding season. This is most likely due to neighbours from hell (ravens) that have nested and reared 3-4 young close by. They appear to have regularly dined on razorbill eggs, so much so that it was difficult to spot many visibly active breeding crevices today; most had been vacated.