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Swifts are staying on to finish off late broods

It was cold in May and June, then very hot in July. This meant that Swifts chose to lay their eggs late, when insect food would be abundant. So they are having to stay late to finish off their familes. Willi Bernbeck has just sent us these photos, taken in his eaves nestboxes. The chicks are almost ready to fly, and (right) are looking at the world that awaits them, typical behaviour. Photos ©  Willi Bernbeck

Essex expert gets going with Swift Nest-place Projects

John Smart, a Swift enthusiast in Essex, has been working on several nest box projects. Here is one of them, now complete and awaiting Swift tenants in 2011. These are the Laindon Barns, where 5 Swift nestboxes have been put up on a refurbished ancient barn. Barn refurbishments have destroyed many Swift (and Swallow) nest places. Here is a way to redress the balance. Photos © Dave McGough

Alpine Swifts get reprieve at Camp Nou, Barcelona's football ground   Porfirio Solla, one of our contacts in Spain, tells us that the huge colony of superb giant Alpine Swifts that breed every year in Barcelona's Camp Nou football stadium has had a temporary reprieve. Norman Foster's plans to rebuild the stadium are being reconsidered. This is hopefully good news for a spectacular, supremely charismatic, (and big!) bird. Photos ©  Darz Mol & Matthias Schmidt, Freiburg

London Zoo's Swift nest boxes - Success again in 2010! Swifts have been using our London Zoo Bugs! House nest boxes for a good few years now. They came back and bred again this year! Two nest boxes were in use, and the Swifts produced no less than six chicks that flew off on migration to Africa. This year we fitted CCTV inside the boxes so we can see what's going on. On the left, a photo of a Swift emerging from a Schwegler nest pod. You can see the loudspeakers used to play calls to attract them. On the right, CCTV photos of the two occupied nest boxes, showing almost fully grown chicks. Photos © Darren Tossell / Dave Clarke ZSL

London's Swifts get help from Boris and the GLA: You can help too!

Excellent news! Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is joining London's Swifts and the RSPB in calling for Londoners to help count Swifts this summer.

UK wide, numbers of Swifts halved between 1994 and 2007 and one of the reasons is a lack of nest sites. London's Swifts now has the support of the Mayor and the RSPB and is asking you to look out for Swifts in your neighbourhood and fill in a survey. This is vital if we are to know how many are left in London.

Swifts can be seen and heard circling overhead of an evening, usually in pairs or small groups, making their distinctive cry, a high-pitched "Screee-ee!" call. These fast moving, sickle-shaped birds arrive in May and should remain with us until August.

Boris Johnson says: "We can all play a part in boosting the chances of survival of these fabulous city birds simply by helping to garner information about them. So, when you are at home of an evening, look out for them sweeping past your window and take part in this survey. Let's make sure these fantastic aerial acrobats remain a common sight over the capital."

As part of this initiative, 20 Swift nestboxes will be installed on Metropolitan Police Service buildings in the coming months. The Mayor is working with the LDA, MPA, TfL and LFEPA to look at ways to provide more nestboxes on public buildings. In addition, the Mayor's draft London Plan and supplementary Planning Guidance for sustainable design and construction include policies promoting biodiversity and the incorporation of nesting and roosting structures into buildings.

Click on the logo to add your sightings to the RSPB's Swift Nest Site Survey




Neat and New!  Swift nestboxes for traditional house eaves

Camden Council builds for Swifts

Your Swift records go to a Good Home!
The National Biodiversity Network is taking on board the Swift records that you have been submitting to the RSPB.

Click on the logo (left) to visit the NBN. We are working closely with the RSPB to record all known Swift nesting sites throughout the UK. A big task, but it's starting to pay off after two seasons. We do it by asking everyone to spot Swifts, and submit their sightings to the RSPB, who then digitise the information and pass it to the NBN, which is aimed at local & national government. As Swifts nest almost exclusively in buildings, and as they are vanishing fast, and as the Town Planning system is a major key to their hoped-for survival, we are delighted this information is now easily available to Planners and local government staff when making decisions about the local built environment.

We find more Swift Houses in Italy

Swifts go "Amber" as UK population crashes
Nature conservation organisations in the UK have put the Swift on the "Amber" list of birds at risk, in recognition of the population having almost halved over the past fifteen years. While Amber status alone will not provide a remedy for the decline, it will bring institutional and political attention to the Swift's plight, and will give added credibility to our campaign to ensure that existing colonies are no longer eliminated quite so casually by builders and developers. It may also help to persuade institutions to help Swifts by creating places for them in new building projects.

Swifts get more new homes in Northern Ireland
The new Municipal Library in Antrim built this year has been fitted with Ibstock Swift Bricks - the result of excellent co-operation between the Librarian, Mark Smyth of the Northern Ireland Swift group and local enthusiasts. The generous and handsome installation ensures the survival of a good sized colony of Swifts, a bird that previously flourished in the area, due in part to the presence of the Lough Neagh Fly, an insect that breeds copiously in fresh water.

Swift enthusiasts Norman Watterson and Adrian McElhone have been working on a new Swift nestbox scheme at a modern industrial building on the shores of fly-rich Lough Neagh, in Northern Ireland. Swifts gather from miles around to feast on the Lough Neagh flies. The new one-piece nest box has 12 separate compartments for the Swifts; their food supply can be seen waiting for them! This is the first of many such installations planned for this area.

Ideal Homes for Swifts

 Westminster University - New Cavendish Street W1

Southwark helps Swifts!
Southwark's just-published "Sustainable Design and Construction Supplementary Planning Document" has given the Borough's Swifts a helping hand. It states:

"Even where little biodiversity interest has been identified on a site, developers should aim to create features that will provide habitat for wildlife. The design of landscaping presents an obvious opportunity for enhancing biodiversity. However even where there are space constraints, there are many different ways habitat improvements can be achieved in cost effective ways, including through green roofs and installing bat bricks, bird boxes or stag beetle loggeries. Swift Bricks are an example of bird bricks. Made of a type of concrete with a hollow interior for the birds to nest in, the bricks can be used in blockwork or brickwork walls, ideally as the top course to provide a very cost effective contribution to biodiversity. The outer face of the brick can be rendered or faced with stone so that they appear inconspicuous on a façade. The bricks should be located out of direct sunlight or else shaded beneath broad eaves and be 5 metres or more above ground. The nests should not be obstructed by nearby trees, cables, creepers or aerials. Swifts are very clean and don't leave piles of droppings that some other birds do. Install 1 to 4 Swift Bricks on a medium to large house, from 4 to 10 on a small block of flats, and 10 to 20 on a large site like a school, hospital or warehouse, or a major apartment development."

Well done Southwark and local Swift enthusiast Steven Robinson who lobbied hard to get this policy developed.

111 New Cavendish St W1 gets Swift, Bird & Bat Boxes

Swift, Pipistrelle Bat and Black Redstart / Wagtail nest places have been installed in the walls of roof top plant rooms high above Oxford Circus in Central London! The contractors, Faithdean plc, required a multi-species solution to improve biodiversity at this site to meet a Planning Requirement. Swift Conservation was asked to advise, and as a result five key urban species, all know to be present in or near the area, were selected for assistance; Swift, Pipistrelle Bat, Grey and Pied Wagtails, and Black Redstarts. By providing shelter plus food resources on an adjacent "green roof" it is hoped these species will move in and thrive.   Photos © Edward Mayer / London's Swifts

Swift nest boxes go up at the Lambeth Hospital

Steven Robinson, a Community Psychiatric Nurse at the Lambeth Hospital, (part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust), was keen to see Swifts breeding there. With the help of London's Swifts, (who surveyed the site for nest box positions), the Hospital's estates management staff, and Lambeth Council's Parks & Green Spaces Team, (who funded the project) he achieved his aim; ten new Schwegler Swift nest boxes installed and ready for occupation in 2008. Photographs © Iain Boulton (London Borough of Lambeth) & (middle) © Steven Robinson (SLaM)

See more of our Projects - click on the Swift!

Swift Pole Colonies  -  Sponsors Wanted!

We know Swifts will exploit motorway lighting for nestplaces, if they can gain access to make their nests in. Dick Newell of the Ely Swifts Group is working on a pole-mounted Swift Colony (see his sketch on the left). Dick's idea, inspired by similar German House Martin pole-mounted colonies, is to produce a simple all-in-one colony ideal for nature reserves and industrial sites.
If you would like more information or to sponsor the erection of such a colony, which can fit onto the poles used for mobile phone masts, as well as those used for goods yard, industrial estate and motorway lights, please contact Dick Newell

 

London's Swifts designs a new D-I-Y Swift & Bat Nest Box

 Click on the Swift to go to our Shopping! page & buy our Swift Nest Box Advice and Designs Pack!
 

Ibstock Brick introduces a new UK-made Swift Brick

Success for Swift Attraction Calls CD!
Brian Cahalane of Northern Ireland set up his own Swift colony
He used a Swift Calls CD to attract the birds to a previously unused nesting area. This is how he did it - you can do it too!
Photograph © Edward Mayer / London's Swifts

"If you have Swifts nesting in your area it is usually relatively easy to attract them to new nesting boxes, especially by using a calls CD. However it is much more difficult to attract Swifts to use nest boxes outside of their comfort zone, and this is where the CD comes into its own. Play the CD on a CD player linked to a separate amplifier, use cheap speaker cable and as many speakers as possible, each one right beside a nest box. I often have twelve speakers going at once. I bought the cheapest and smallest speakers you can buy. Play from late April onwards, continuously from dawn to darkness as loud as you dare, and you will attract Swifts. But it may take two seasons for them to nest. I have been able to attract Swifts from a half mile away and more. I conducted a simple experiment using my wife and son and mobile phones. One was positioned at the house, the other a quarter of a mile away, and myself a half mile away. It's almost a straight line from my house to the centre of the village.A phone call from myself and the CD was switched on at my house at full volume, I could hear it in the village. Swifts began to move towards my house and I could observe them through my binoculars, when they passed my wife she rang me, and when they arrived at the house my son rang me. I have 24 potential nesting sites and often have as many as ten speakers playing at once, positioned at ten boxes. As I now have a colony established there are now many visits from Swift "prospectors" coming by themselves to investigate."

London's Swifts sells a Swift Calls CD made from recordings made at Ulrich Tigges' Berlin Swift Colony.

Click on the Swift to learn how to use the Swift Calls CD

Order a Swift Calls CD - click on the Swift!

For further information contact London's Swifts

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 Thank you for your interest - Please help Swifts!