The First Few Days Of Swiftlet's Life

The baby birds after hatching from their eggs need adequate food to grow.

If they are not provided with food for two days, they will die.

If they are already grown and there are no food being supplied by their parent, due to severe flooding or drought, they will in fact kill themselves by crawling out of the nest. They actually kill themselves by falling onto the BH floor.

By doing so they vacate the nest and at the same time their parent will be able to survive to start a cycle once the food supply is back to normal.

Those that are properly fed will be able to take their first flight on the 45th day after hatching.

On the 43rd day they will no longer take any food. This is their way of preparing themselves to cut down their weight.

They will no longer be sitting in the nest but clinging at the side of the nest.

They will test their wings vigorously during this period.

Once ready, on the 45th day, they will release their claws from the nest and drop towards the BH floor.

In general these young birds will follow those light out of the house at around 6am till 10am. They actually follow the matured birds out of the house.

They will not follow them to the hunting ground but will fly above the rooftop as if testing their wings and learn how to navigate from outside the house into their nest. They do try to catch those insects in the air but their main focus is to strengthen their wings and body before going for hunting on the 48th day.

They will repeat this flight tests movement many times until late afternoon. If they feel tired they return home and will cling onto the nest where there were born.

After resting for about 2-3 hours they will start the flight test again from 3pm onwards.

This test and navigation check flight will last the most 2-3 days.

Once they are ready and strong enough they will follow their parent to hunt for food on the 47-48 days of birth. Usually they will return home following their parent.

During this period that can be easily diverted to enter any new BH or perhaps old BHs that are located along their flight path towards home.

That can be a very good reason why it is important to ensure that your new BH must be completed just before the ending of the breeding season.

Hope this article gave you some idea on how these young birds start that maiden flight and how they get themselves strengthen before going for hunting.