Swift Nest Box Camera – United Kingdom
This website hosts a live wildlife camera observing a nest box used by Common Swifts (Apus apus) in the United Kingdom.
The camera captures images automatically throughout the day and night, allowing visitors to follow nesting activity and behaviour inside the box.
This is a personal, non-commercial project created for:
A compact module based on a Raspberry Pi Zero running MotionEye is installed inside a purpose-built nest box. The camera module is a Pi2 NOIR and external lighting is provided by 9 x IR LEDs Images are captured automatically and uploaded at regular intervals, providing a near real-time view.
The Common Swift (Apus apus) is a remarkable migratory bird and one of the most aerial species in the world. These birds spend almost their entire lives in flight, eating, drinking, sleeping, and even mating while airborne, only landing to nest.
Swifts are summer visitors to the United Kingdom, arriving from sub‑Saharan Africa in late April or May and leaving again by August after raising their young.
They are superb fliers, reaching speeds of around 70 mph (113 km/h), making them one of the fastest birds in level flight.
Their diet consists entirely of flying insects, which they catch while in the air. This makes them an important part of the ecosystem by helping to control insect populations.
Swifts typically nest in small gaps and crevices in buildings, especially under roofs and eaves. They return to the same nesting sites each year and often form long‑term pair bonds.
Sadly, Common Swift numbers in the UK have declined significantly in recent decades and the species is now on the conservation “Red List”. Loss of nesting sites and a reduction in insect food are the main causes of this decline.
This is a personal wildlife monitoring project. For enquiries, please contact the site owner via g0obj.uk.