Swift Boxes at St John's College, Cambridge

Written by Dick Newell
Rowena Baxter regularly waits for the Park and Ride bus outside St John's College, Cambridge, and being an observant birder, she could not fail to notice the decline in Swifts in recent years, so she arranged for us to explore opportunities for Swift nest-boxes somewhere on the site together with Dr R. E. McConnel, a college fellow, and Steve Beeby, Superintendent of Buildings.
To quote from their website: "St John's College is one of the oldest and largest colleges in Cambridge. Former students include famous business and political leaders, as well as renowned scientists and artists. It's an inspiring place to study, or even just to visit."
For a college that was founded in 1511, one couldn't exactly go hanging Schwegler swift boxes around the buildings, so we cast our sights on the chapel tower.

St John's College Chapel

8 nest-boxes in 4 cabinets

By the standards of any normal church, this is an enormous tower, with huge louvres, but the space where one might expect bells is empty, a disused dusty cavern with openings to the outside world. The top of the tower looks down on the Round Church and gives an evocative view of Kings College Chapel to the south.

There are 3 sets of louvres on each of the 4 sides of the tower, with openings behind 'bird proof' mesh at floor level. It was decided to place 4 2-box cabinets behind the openings on the west side.

Permission was granted by the dons and other college authorities.

Bob Tonks designed, built and installed the boxes. Attraction calls will be played. Should we succeed in attracting Swifts into these boxes, there is plenty of opportunity for expansion.

One nest-box cabinet with concave nest platforms feathered
by the pupils of Fulbourn primary school.

A swift's eye view of The Round Church
taken from the tower of St John's Chapel

Geolocator Swift returns to Landbeach

Contributed by Dick

This swift with a geolocator returned to its nestbox on 13th May, following its mate that returned on 11th May. It was fitted with its geolocator on 21st July 2011, and then continued returning to the nest-box until the chicks fledged on 28th July.
The video shows the bird with the geolocator returning first, followed over 20 minutes later by its mate bringing the first feather in of 2012. The initial greeting looks more like a fight, but they soon settle down for a night of mutual preening.

More on the St Neots Brewery

Written by Dick
We can report good progress in the story of the St Neots Brewery Swift colony. After a shaky start we have excellent cooperation with Callisto Homes who have made great efforts to achieve a satisfactory solution to the loss of 6 Swift nest sites.

Bill Murrells assessing the space utilised by Swifts
before the roof was removed. Photo Alison Pearson

First, let's examine where the Swifts nested under the asbestos roof. As is normal, they were nesting on top of the wall under a single layer of asbestos. One can only imagine the temperatures reached in the heat of the mid-day sun, and, not surprisingly, when Bill Murrells examined the nest sites, he found a number of dessicated Swift corpses. This place was far less than ideal for nesting Swifts.

A dessicated Swift which probably died from heat exhaustion
Photo Alison Pearson

One can only wonder at the success rate of Swifts nesting in such a difficult situation.

It was refreshing that the project manager, Marcus de Figueiredo and the bricklayers on site, quickly got on board with what needed to be done to try to rescue, and improve, this well known Swift colony.

Emergency Mitigation Swift Bricks

Contributed by Dick
We were alerted to a situation last week where an asbestos roof was ripped off an old Victorian brewery, a week before 6 pairs of breeding swifts are due to return to their nest-sites under the asbestos.

Airbrick liner about to be cut with angle grinder

Some fast foot work by Alison Pearson and, particularly, by Bill Murrells who managed to get approval from the owner-developer to incorporate swift bricks into the top layers of brickwork, partly hidden behind a 220mm barge board. Commercial swift bricks were out of the question, given the short notice. Bill came up with the idea to use terracotta airbrick liners to fashion rather nice looking nest-boxes. The deadline for delivery of the Swift bricks to the brick layers is Friday morning 4th May.

Ludlow Swift Conservation Group

This is a fine example what a local group can achieve when they put their minds to it. 
Contributed by Peta Sams

The Ludlow Swift Conservation Group was launched in January 2011 at the AGM of Ludlow 21 with the support of Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Shropshire Ornithological Society. Swifts are an important part of the Ludlow skyline in summer and many residents and visitors look out for them and enjoy their company each year.

Midway Motors bell tower, Ludlow

However there has been no systematic surveying of these birds to understand where they nest or any assessment of their numbers to see whether they are thriving or struggling to maintain numbers. The aims of the group in its first year were to:
- Get an idea how many birds there are in and around Ludlow
- Find where they nest and how successful they are at raising young
- Plan what can be done to preserve and create new nest sites

Swift nest cups in MDF (fibreboard)

Contributed by Lyndon Kearsley

Having read Dick Newell's pieces on nest cups and armed with his excellent technical drawings, I decided to try making nest cups using left over off-cuts of 2 cm thick MDF. I cut it up into 12.5 cm squares and marked up the centers using converging diagonals. Turning the cups to 1.5cm deep on my lathe proved easy, and quite a quick job. I then angled the sides on the table saw and beveled the top outside edge with a hand plane. A later improvement was to round off the inside edge of the cup for added comfort.

I smeared wood glue around the rim and decorated with a few feathers donated by my chickens. Hopefully the ready and waiting nest box furniture will tempt some new tenants this year.

Caution: it is not a good idea to breath the dust from MDF, so if you try this, you should preferably do it outside and wear a mask.

Getting provision for Swifts into churches

Contributed by Jake Allsop and Bill Murrells

These notes apply to the Church of England.

St Mary's Longstowe

There are several individuals and entities that you might have to deal with when trying to make provision for Swifts in a church building. The person responsible for the fabric of the building is the Churchwarden. His concern is that any work carried out to provide accommodation for Swifts, such as a louvre cabinet, does not conflict with any regulations provided by the Church authorities.

The rules governing the care of churches are the concern of the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC). These rules are known as the “De Minimis Rules”, and are in two parts or schedules:

Schedule A relates to activities that can be carried out, usually by the Churchwarden, without consultation with the DAC.

Schedule B to activities that require DAC approval. This approval comes in the form of a “Faculty” or permission to carry out the work. A Faculty is issued by the Chancellor of the diocese on the recommendation of the DAC after they have accepted plans submitted by the Churchwarden, the Church Architect(s) and other professionals.

Box of Swifts - update

Back in June 2011 we described our Box of Swifts for playing calls to attract Swifts into nest-boxes. As a result, we have been somewhat overwhelmed with demand, to the extent we cannot accept any more requests. 


The BoS greatly reduces two sources of hassle:
1. Installing bulky speakers near to a nest-box 5 metres from the ground and supplying mains power to the speaker power supply. The BoS uses a small Car Tweeter with a single piece of low voltage speaker cable to it.
2. An automated system driven by a conventional timer to play calls at chosen times, using a player not designed for this sort of thing. The BoS starts or stops playing when the power is switched on or off, and it comes complete with Swift calls.


So, in order to try to mitigate any disappointment, we suggest here an alternative which is fairly easy to put together yourself. This alternative solves 1, and to some extent 2.

Antrim Borough Council makes space for Swifts

This is a good example of a building enhanced for Swifts without detracting at all from the building appearance. Contributed by Rodney Monteith

The Oriel Gallery: Eleven Ibstock bricks on this facade

As part of a major restoration project Antrim Borough Council in Northern Ireland has provided new homes for Swifts.

Boxes under sloping eaves

Pictures by Kerry Vaughan

Sloping eaves can be a bit awkward, because, in general no standard box will fit nicely. We had a similar situation at Milton Road Primary School a couple of years ago, and the design used here at Suffolk Wildlife Trust, Lackford Lakes is essentially the same.

The box is installed by removing the sloping front, 2 screws through the back into the wall, then replace the front.

The end result looks rather good and in keeping with the building. The Suffolk Wildlife Trust has done a great job. AND Swifts have already been seen over the lake - on 5th April!

More pictures and design drawings:

Temporary post - German Swift film

This is an excellent video, in German, about Swifts  It lasts 43 minutes and is was available online for a few days

http://mediathek-video.br.de/B7Mediathek.html?bccode=both

After opening put "mauersegler" in the box on the left, then click on "natur exclusiv".

Swifts nesting in an open church loft

This is another situation where Swifts have access to each other's nests. 
Contributed by Lyndon Kearsley

"Onze-Lieve-Vrouw" (Our Dear Lady)

Last year, on 5th July, I was invited by Jaak Brosens to visit a church in Kalmthout to the north of Antwerp. The brick and stone church has a number of nest bricks inserted into the main roof. In the church tower the wooden steeple construction forms an open loft above the level of the belfry (just above the clocks).

The last row of stone has a lot of mortar missing between the blocks where the wooden steeple takes over and swifts are able to get into the open loft through these cracks. They nest next to an entrance hole and the loft is 15 x 15 meters. There are more than 20 nests and some quite close to each other.

We found that well grown young were visiting neighboring nests and very inquisitive. We also controlled a couple of ringed adults; one ringed as a chick in the same tower 10 years before to the day 5th July 2001, another was ringed as an adult bird (age unknown) on 2nd July 2004.

I hope to visit again this season.

Swifts nesting in an open roof space

Written by Dick


This is an interesting story which could have some implications for colony nest-box design. [Photos by Colin Smale (www.fotolincs.com), click any image to see them at a larger size. ]

The first three doors this end of the cottages
were empty dwellings © Colin Smale

Back in 1982, Colin Smale was studying a Swift colony in an old house in Lincolnshire. He estimated that some 30 pairs of Swifts nested there, but, as so often happens, the colony has long since been destroyed by roof renovations.

Eggs in adjacent nests © Colin Smale

There was a long row of nests, all on one level under the eaves, with little or no barrier between adjacent nests. Colin noticed that the numbers of eggs in the nests fluctuated up and down, as if the birds were moving eggs between nests, though he never actually observed birds carrying eggs.

Swift boxes at Belfast Zoo

Here is a novel idea to attract Swifts - make them feel as if they are in Africa!

Contributed by Gayle Turley

Over the past ten years, Belfast Zoo has played an active role in native species conservation in Northern Ireland. Although swifts are regularly seen within the grounds of the zoo, there have never been any known nesting sites.

Schwegler 16s nest-boxes in the Giraffe enclosure

We are keen to change this and, after taking advice from a local enthusiast, we decided to go forward with a plan to attract the swifts to nest in the zoo for the first time. We ordered Schwegler No.16s boxes, 5 in total, and set about finding a suitable position to place them. We found that the side of our giraffe house was an ideal height and a perfect location to place the boxes. As the boxes are in the giraffe enclosure, extra care was taken to ensure they were high enough to be out of the giraffe’s reach! We plan to start playing a swift attraction CD from the end of April to increase our chances of attracting swifts to nest in the zoo.

We will also be placing educational signs in that area of the zoo, explaining to visitors what the nest boxes are for, why they are needed and hopefully raising awareness for the plight of the swift and encouraging others to put up nesting boxes.

For more information:

www.belfastzoo.co.uk

www.facebook.com/belfastzoo

www.twitter.com/belfastzoo

Wailing Wall welcome ceremony for returning Swifts

When this hit the news, we thought it worth highlighting and summarising here. As Jerusalem, is much further south and east, Swifts arrive in March, 2 months earlier than our birds, so they have already welcomed their birds back.  


Contributed by Jake

We all know that moment of joy when we welcome our returning Swifts, but in Jerusalem the welcome is huge, formal and very well organised. Every year, a ceremony takes place at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, where there is a breeding colony of Swifts.

Announcing the welcoming event

The proceedings are led by the Mayor and other local dignatories, together with Swift specialists like Dr. Yossi Leshem, from the Tel-Aviv University and Society for the Protection of Nature and Amnonn Hahn, General Manager of “FRIENDS OF THE SWIFTS” Association.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem is of great historical and religious significance.

American Black Swift wintering grounds discovered

We thought that this story of the American Black Swift Cypseloides niger is so amazing, that we are putting a link to it here. 

To quote from the article:


"It was one of the last North American bird species to be described to science, in 1857.  Its nest was not found until 1901.  The first audio recording of its voice was not made until 1993.  And every summer, across most of its breeding range, it is the last species to arrive from the south, often not appearing until the end of June. But most remarkably of all, it was the only North American migratory bird to enter the 21st century with the location of its wintering grounds still a complete mystery."


Here on the left are the maps produced of the wintering range of 3 birds and their return spring migration route.


We look forward to seeing equivalent results from geolocator tracking of European Swifts.


Read more here

An interview with John Stimpson

Contributed by Jake

The other day, I went to interview John Stimpson. John makes a range of nestboxes as well as other wildlife products such as bird tables and hedgehog shelters. For many years he had a garden nursery and just made a few nestboxes as a sideline, initially to provide boxes for his brother's garden to prevent his brother from paying "silly prices" for commercially-produced boxes. When John decided to give up the nursery business, he also decided to spend more time on nestboxing, or what he calls his "glorified hobby".

John Stimpson in his workshop (click to enlarge)

At first, John tells me, all his customers were locals, attracted both by the quality of his boxes, and by the reasonable prices he charges. In response to requests, he found himself extending his initial repertoire from boxes for small hole-nesters like Blue Tit and Great Tit and open-fronted boxes suitable for Robins, and Spotted Flycatchers to woodpecker boxes, getting his designs from published sources.

Keeping Starlings out of the Schwegler 1 MF

Contributed by Dick

Schwegler 1MF

In the first phase of the Fulbourn project, a number of the Schwegler 1MF boxes were occupied by Swifts, but also several were occupied by Starlings. This is because the entrance is too large.

On the inside of the louvres of this box, where the entrance is, there is a recess about 10mm deep . We have recommended to South Cambridgeshire District Council that they fill this recess with Polyfilla in order to reduce the entrance to 30mm.

If Starlings are occupying your Swift boxes, then reduce the entrance sizes and put up Starling boxes some distance away from the Swift boxes.

You can read more about entrance sizes in this post

Why are our African migrants declining?

Contributed by Dick

A recent paper in Bird Study (see reference at the end) has looked at correlations between population trends of migrants in Britain and a number of 'bioclimatic' factors in Africa. Of course, Swift is included in the 26 species they looked at.

Click for larger image

Some African migrants are increasing, including those which might have similar pressures to Swift, e.g. Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin, but many are decreasing, especially Turtle Dove, Cuckoo and Spotted Flycatcher.

Two of the factors analysed are 'bioclimatic zone' with categories 'southern', 'humid', 'arid' and 'north', and 'winter habitat' with categories 'general', 'wetland', 'open' and 'wood'.

Swift is categorised as bioclimatic zone 'southern'  and winter habitat 'general'.

AfS Church Porch Poster

If you would like to promote awareness of Swifts in your local church, then why not download and print the AfS Church Porch Poster to place on your church notice board?

Click for larger image

First click on the image to see it a bit larger, then go here and hit 'File>download'.

The wonderful picture of a Swift is courtesy of Tom Lindroos.
The picture of the church is by Helen.