Cambridge International Swift Conference 2014 - summary proceedings

For those who missed this conference, we have produced a summary.

The Summary Proceedings can be found on tinyurl.com/cisc2014
Image quality is better if you download it and view it as a pdf.

Also, view the conference movie!

A new house with 9 new Swift boxes

[Note a download containing many more pictures is available in the Downloads section on the right]

[Update July 2014: 2 of these internal boxes were occupied in this first year, one with a horizontal slot entrance through the brickwork and a second one in a vertical slot entrance]

Bob Tonks already has 4 occupied external Swift boxes on his present house in Milton. He has now built a new house in Histon with a number of internal nestboxes of various designs and entrance configurations. 

The ideas are simple, of low cost and minimal inconvenience to the builder.
The following pictures should be self explanatory, click any one to see them enlarged:

Entrance made by 2 simple cuts in one brick

The above entrance leads to a box fashioned out of an air brick liner embedded in the inner wall

Air brick liner with entrance

Although unconventional, this simple idea provides a vertical slot

The vertical slot leads to a marine plywood box embedded in the inner wall. This box has a perspex back.
Two of these plyswood boxes also have a horizontally oriented entrance

3 entrances in a gable end. All of the boxes behind these entrances are made of marine plywood and
are embedded in the inner wall.

4 neat entrances into the eaves

Eaves nestbox design

Eaves nestbox installed

Beijing Swift movies at the Summer Palace

It is difficult to grasp the spectacle of the Swifts breeding in the Kuoru Ting pavilion, in the Summer Palace, but these two videos give you some idea:

by Lyndon Kearsley

First, Swifts flying around the outside, where ~50 pairs breed:

.
... and on the inside, where another ~50 pairs breed:

The flute player inside the pavilion was particularly loud.  Similar loud performances occur most days, but it does not seem to bother the Swifts.

#beijing

Pekinensis

Back in the 80's and 90's I regularly went to China, especially in May where I led trips to Beidaihe with Tony Marr for Wildwings. These trips invariably included a trip to the Summer Palace in Beijing where one of the enduring memories was the fabulous swift colony in the Kuoru Ting pavilion by the lake. This is one of many beautiful buildings at the Summer Palace housing a swift colony, with about 100 pairs of swifts. 

by Dick Newell

Kuoru Ting pavillion, Summer Palace, Beijing. Photo Lyndon Kearsley

On a previous trip to Cape Town in January 2005, I had seen rather pale Common Swifts on Table Mountain, so I wondered, had these birds come from Beijing? 

Pekinensis Common Swift, in the sun, showing a contrasting
dark back.The underparts are also darker than the wings and tail.
Photo Dick Newell

So, when, by chance, I ran into Terry Townshend, a European bird watcher living in Beijing, at a Birdlife International event in London in December 2013, it was not long before we hatched a scheme to put geolocators on the Summer Palace swifts.

Pekinensis swifts are a bit special, they are different from our Swifts, paler, more like Pallid Swifts and their call is softer, also resembling Pallid Swift to our ear. Beijing is not far from the eastern extreme of the species' range.

After Terry's return to Beijing, and a few weeks, and a few emails later,  we had ourselves a project. By now Lyndon Kearsley, ringer and geolocator fitter extraordinaire, was signed up, as was the Beijing Birdwatching Society. BBWS has been running a project to ring the Summer Palace swifts since 2007, taking over from Beijing Capital Normal University who started this survival study in 1992.

We originally planned to take just 10 geolocators, then Susanne Åkesson, director of the Centre for Animal Movement Research (CAnMove) at Lund University gave us 20 more. The 10 turned out to be 11, so we arrived in Beijing with 31 geolocators to fit.

So, on 23rd May, we arrived in Beijing, planning up to 3 days to catch enough birds to fit 31 geolocators. The evening of 23rd was spent giving a workshop to members of Beijing Capital Normal University and the Beijing Birdwatching Society on how to fit geolocators. They all picked it up very quickly.

Lyndon holding the attention of the Chinese geolocator team Photo Dick Newell

On 24th May, at 5:00am we arrived at the Summer Palace to find the pavilion enclosed in mistnets, Swifts were already being caught on their way out. Two and a half hours later, we had deployed all 31 geolocators. This is testament to the meticulous planning, organisation and competence of the Chinese team.

Pekinensis Common Swift, with geolocator fitted, awaiting release. Photo Dick Newell

We would like to thank, first of all, Terry for making all the right contacts in Beijing and Wu Lan, from the BBWS, who has worked miracles to ensure the Chinese authorities were comfortable with the project.

For a further account, with more pictures see Terry's blogpost on birdingbeijing.com and a more complete account on Birding Frontiers also written by Terry, For an interesting account of Beijing Swifts see this film, featuring Professor Gao, who we met at the Summer Palace.

One bird of the ~50 pairs nesting inside the dome of the pavilion. Most of the birds fitted with
 geolocators were nesting here, with another ~50 pairs in the outside rim. Photo Dick Newell

#beijing

Extremadura Swift Conference

This event looks well worth publicising, and they have produced a brilliant poster, which we couldn't resist posting here:

Full details of the program, in Spanish are here:
http://visitaalange.es/festival-de-vencejos-de-alange-programa/

Swift Conference - the movie

We held the conference, and now you can watch the movie!

Read the whole story on Birdguides

BB eye - citizen Action for Swifts

British Birds magazine runs a feature, called 'BB eye' every month, where contributors are invited to spotlight something controversial,  something they have a passion about, or something that needs saying.

So we contributed a piece, for the May 2014 issue, about Swifts, highlighting the need for people in the building trade, as well as individuals to put up large numbers of Swift nestboxes in coming decades.

Gray Jolliffe, author and cartoonist extraordinaire of the Daily Mail communicated the message far better than any words:

You can read the whole BB eye piece here

Retrofitted Swift boxes in a gable end

These are the neatest and most professional retrofitted internal Swift boxes we have seen.

The pictures below tell their own story, but first, in his own words:

Update 2016: Following one pair occupying a box in 2015, 2 pairs bred in 2016 as well as 2 more occupied boxes!

Update 2017:  6 of the internal loft boxes were occupied, with one pair of first time breeders staying until mid September. In addition to this, there are 2 pairs in the Zeist boxes on the other side of the house and a pair moved in under the tiles above where the internal loft boxes are, so up to 9 pairs!

Michael Osborne

9 neat entrances in a gable end
There are more pictures on the Read more button below

We hired the equipment - a diamond drill and 117mm dry core. All the holes were drilled from inside to out. The breakout on the outer brick face is minimal if you back the drill pressure off when nearly through. Main thing to make sure is that the drill being used has a clutch and not to use the hammer action as it damages the diamond tips of the core.

The core has a pilot bit in the centre. It's best to start the drilling off with the pilot in place then remove it once the core is started, otherwise it slows drilling down.

The entrance plates are made from 12mm exterior cement board and cut using a tile cutter blade in a standard Jigsaw. The entrance holes were cut out by drilling through with a masonry bit big enough to get the Jigsaw in to then cut out the shape. To try and avoid the birds confusing entrances, I made some of the holes semi-circle shapes. They're all 29mm by 75mm. The runways inside the tubes are made from the same material as the entrances, glued into place using Sticks Like All Weather Adhesive. 

All of the entrances and runways were sealed with a brick sealant called Stormdry prior to painting. The tubes and entrance plate assemblies were then sealed into the wall using an exterior sealant.

The pipe used is a standard 110mm (external diameter) soil pipe, available at most DIY stores.

To match the brickwork I bought a number of Sandtex tester pots and mixed them in situ on the ladder to match the surrounding bricks - adding sand to get the correct texture.

The boxes are made from 12mm marine ply and are all 450mm x 310mm internally. The internal height is 200mm apart from a few boxes which needed to be reduced in order to fit them into the space. 

All of the boxes are wrapped in insulation to try and reduce heat transfer from the loft which gets hot during the summer. The angled brackets which the boxes are screwed to the wall with are available from B&Q. I've then sealed around any gaps between the box and the wall with a gap filler. The hinged backs have an acrylic viewing panel in them which have slideable covers on the outside - just in case the loft light is turned on accidentally!

Cambridge International Swift Conference News Release

The Cambridge International Swift Conference is on, roughly 160 people are coming into Cambridge and you can read the news release here

Experimental Swift brick

by Dick

In publicising this idea, it is in the spirit of encouraging people to do experiments, rather than an idea that should be rolled out extensively, not yet anyway. The idea came out of the success of the air brick liner Swift bricks at St Neots. 

[Update 2017: Of the 6 boxes installed in 2013, 4 of them had pairs of breeding Swifts this year, and Swifts have explored the other 2, but not settled]

Swift brick with 2 fostered Swifts. Photo Judith Wakelam

The air brick liner Swift brick has internal dimensions: width 175mm x length 200 x height 100mm.

It thus occupies a space of length 1 brick and height 2 courses of brick. We wondered about a brick of height 1 brick - would this be acceptable to Swifts?

So, we built some prototypes out of 5mm thick fibre cement board. These have internal dimensions: width 150mm x length 225mm x height 75mm.

Swift exploring a Swift brick. Photo Clarke Brunt

In 2013, we installed 6 of these on 3 houses, all of whom were playing attraction calls. We managed to get Swifts to enter 2 of the boxes at one site, and we had them clinging to the boxes at a second site.

For the experiments, we have not knocked bricks out of any walls yet, but we have installed them under eaves with a simple wooden harness.

The width of these boxes could extend across the cavity, which, in modern houses, may be as much as 100mm, allowing a box width of 200mm. Also the length could be extended to 1.5 bricks ~330mm long. This would fit well in a Flemish bond.

4 fostered Swift chicks in a Swift brick

If this idea works, it would be the easiest thing to retro-fit into a wall, and may provide least resistance in the housing trade to install many of them in new build. We feel it could be a game changer.

For anyone who would like to have a go at this, please get in touch.

Postscript 2016: 2 of the boxes on one house were occupied by Swifts! The other 4 boxes have been occupied by House Sparrows.
#swiftpic

Nest concave tool

by Dick

We previously advocated soft fibre-board for making nest concaves, here. Up until now, we have made these by gluing together two layers of fibre-board to make a blank 25mm thick, then scooping out the concave on a lathe. Here we have a better idea.

The tool mounted above a blank, and the tool in action, right.

The cutting edges are bevelled at 30°

A friend of mine has made a tool to be used in a pillar drill. Setting the pillar drill to its slowest speed, 210 rpm, it does a nice job of very quickly excavating the concave, without creating clouds of carcinogenic dust.

The material of the blade is 3mm gauge plate.

It takes less than a minute to scoop out each concave.

Note: the diameter 100mm is intended for cutting material 25.4mm (1 inch) thick. For other thicknesses, assuming 2mm is left at the bottom, the diameters would be as in this table. A larger diameter means a shallower concave:

Thickness	Diameter
12	191
12.7	180
15	152
18	129
20	118
22	110
24	104
25	102
25.4	101

Little Swift colony rescue

This is a reblog, with kind permission, of a report which appeared in the October 2013 issue of the Birdlife South Africa e-Newsletter. It is a heartening story about the rescue of a colony of Little Swifts, Apus affinis, in a building in Rustenburg, a city situated at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range in North West Province. It shows what you can do if you:

[1] approach the property owner in the right way;

[2] win the trust of the builders;

[3] add a little gentle pressure by involving the local media.

Little Swift in the hand

 

 

 

Members of BirdLife Rustenburg were first alerted to a bird problem when we received a call from a property agent. The agent stated that there were a lot of swallows with chicks in an old motor dealership that was being converted into a shopping complex. The builder had been instructed to close off the original entrance by building two walls. The builder had spoken to the agent, saying that if he completed the building then the young swallows would be trapped.

On visiting the site, it was found that there was a large colony of Little Swifts present. It was obviously not breeding season but the builder had based his comments on the bird’s small size. We immediately commenced negotiating with the new owner to delay a portion of the building operations.

Ringing at the Little Swift colony

In order to add force to our negotiations, the local newspaper (Rustenburg Herald) was called in and they immediately ran the story. A compromise was reached with the new owners, who agreed to suspend building the final section until early summer. At this point it would be warm enough for the swifts to relocate.
One of our new members, a registered ringer, suggested that we ring the birds. All in all about 100 Little Swifts were ringed and again our local newspaper ran the story along with pictures of the birds being ringed.

A successful venture and we now wait with a little trepidation to see where the new colony will be formed.

View of Rustenburg, North West Province, South Africa

Internal boxes with entrances fashioned from an air brick liner

From many points of view, built in nest-boxes are to be preferred to those hung on the outside of a wall, particularly if placed high up in a gable end within a roof-space. The nestboxes are secure, out of the sun and rain, and they provide a minimum of visual impact to the building. Although very easy to incorporate while a building is being put up, it is also not that difficult to retrofit them, but it does require some level of building skill. We have documented 2 examples here and here. 

[Postscript July 2015: A pair has raised 2 chicks in the the right hand box. The pair in the external heat-proof box has again raised 2 chicks]

The original double-walled external nest box and entrances to 3 new internal nest boxes

Model 400 air brick liner 220 x 200 x 65mm

Here is another idea using entrances made out of an air brick liner - this time the model 400 on page 10 of this PDF. This air brick liner has a hole 30mm high.

We previously described the success of a single, heat-proof nest box on the outside of Judith Wakelam's bungalow in Worlington. As Judith wished to have more nest boxes we decided to build 3 nestboxes inside the attic, rather than add more outside on this south-facing gable end.

Entrance fabrication

The air brick was cut up with an angle grinder, then the 3 component pieces were glued together with a resin glue, suitable for stonework. One can get at least 4 entrances out of 1 air brick liner.

A hole was made in the outer wall by removing 50mm from each side of a vertical bond in the brickwork, leaving a space big enough for half a brick - the size of the entrance piece. This can be done very neatly by drilling a hole through the mortar then using a sabre saw to cut the brick.

Bill Murrells installing the entrances. Photo Judith Wakelam

In this case, the inner wall was made of concrete blocks, so we chose to replace the height of a block with a nest-box, abutted against the outer wall with a waterproof membrane between the box and the wall. Alternatively, we could have used a 100mm core drill to make a hole in the inner wall providing access through a 100mm pipe to the nest box which would be hung on the inner wall.

Bill finishing off the installation. Photo Judith Wakelam

The nest boxes were made of weather-proof plywood. The removable wooden backs conceal a perspex 'window' to provide direct viewing when any birds become established.

Each box was fitted with a soft fibre-board nest concave.



#inserts #Cambridge

Bird Atlas 2007-11: what does it say about Swifts?

The preface to this monumental work says that this book will set the agenda for bird conservation for the next 20 years. We are therefore interested to see what it says about Swifts, in particular what has happened since the previous Atlases in 1968-72 and 1988-91?
Perhaps the most important takeway is that Swifts have been declining for at least 40 years, something not brought out in more recent datasets.

Click maps to enlarge

The Breeding Distribution Map shows all those 10km squares in which at least 1 pair of Swifts was found possibly, probably or proved breeding. Swifts breed in virtually every square apart from north and west Scotland, and the western part of Ireland. 

If one compared it with the equivalent map for 1988-91, it would appear similar because relatively few squares have completely lost, or gained Swifts in the intervening years. However, the two maps below reveal more clearly what has actually been going on.


 

The Breeding Relative Abundance Change Map gives a graphical representation in the change in occupied tetrads in each 20km square between the two Atlases. Red signifies an increase, blue a decrease: the darker the colour the bigger the change.

This map shows that rather more squares decreased in this measure than increased. 

Though the overall pattern is one of decline, there are some areas of good news, including southern Ireland in a country where overall there have been the most decreases.

The Breeding Distribution Change Map highlights those 10km squares that have completely lost or gained breeding Swifts since the previous two Atlases in 1968-72 and 1988-91. A black triangle means a loss, a red triangle means a gain. A small triangle signifies the change since 1968-72 and a large triangle since 1988-91. 

There are far more losses than gains. It is clear that Swifts have been losing ground for at least the last 40 years, As one might expect, the losses are concentrated in those areas where Swifts are more sparsely distributed, particularly Ireland, parts of Wales and north and western Scotland. 

A low density population is more likely to disappear than a higher one. It is on the edges of a species distribution where change is most obvious. 

So the Atlas is telling the same story as the Breeding Bird Census and the trends in BirdTrack reporting rates. It is helpful that there is no ambiguity in the trends determined by these three BTO datasets, it means conservation decisions can be made with there being little doubt about what the data is telling us.

You can read more about the Atlas, with an excellent promotional video here

Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dawn Balmer and the BTO for permission to publish these maps.

Reference
Balmer, D.E., Gillings, S., Caffrey, B. J., Swann, R. L., Downie, I. S. & Fuller, R. J. 2013. Bird Atlas 2007-11: The breeding and wintering birds of Britain and Ireland. BTO Books, Thetford.

Fulbourn internal nest box design

As the provision of internal nest boxes on the 'Swifts' estate in Fulbourn has proved so successful, we thought it worthwhile to document in detail how it was done. 

Assembly of cavity panel, entrance pipe and nest box

Exploded view

Holes with pipes inserted

Cavity Panels added

Internal box, made of marine plywood

Entrance pipes through insulation, before brickwork

We have described here the success of internal nest boxes in Fulbourn, which seem to be greatly preferred by Swifts to external nestboxes:

In 2013, Swifts used 66 out of 139 internal nest boxes, but only 9 out of 88 external nest boxes. The internal boxes were custom made out of marine plywood, the external boxes were Schwegler 1MF's

All of the internal boxes are placed in roof spaces (attics) above the level of any living quarters. So nice and high for the Swifts and out of the way of humans. Typically, entrances are provided through a gable end.

A 4 inch core drill was used to drill a hole through the brickwork and insulation. In these houses there was no cavity, just a thick layer of insulation inside the brickwork. A 4 inch pipe provided a route from the entrance cavity panel to the nest box.

Why is Fulbourn so successful?
70 pairs of Swifts were displaced from their old nest sites, so there was a large surplus of established birds looking for somewhere to breed. This shows that, contrary to advice sometimes given, it is well worth providing replacement nest sites, even if you cannot put them close to the old nesting places.

The difference between the internal and external nest boxes is that the entrances face in different directions - maybe it was easier for these birds, desperate to find somewhere to breed, to spot the horizontally-facing entrances of the internal boxes first.

Starlings occupied many of the Schwegler 1MF's, this could have deterred the Swifts from using these boxes.

Perhaps Swifts particularly like to have a certain distance between the entrance and the nesting place, provided by the 4 inch pipe.

There was a limited amount of attraction call playing, but in this case, it was probably a minor factor.

What might one do differently
It may be relevant to ask what one might do differently, not that it is necessary to do anything differently - as it works very well.

The inside of the pipe was roughened to give the Swifts a grip. It might be easier to use a small amount of cement mortar to give a rough flat path.

The entrance hole is placed in the centre of the box. Swifts may prefer it off centre, nearer one end.

The boxes are quite large, with a floor area 400-500mm x 140mm. 300-400mm x 175mm might be better proportioned.

The pictures, left, should be self explanatory - click any one to see enlarged versions of all of them.

Acknowlegement
Thanks are due to Rob Mungovan of South Cambs District Council who was the driving force behind this project and also for the use of his pictures.



#inserts

Swifts in the Maiden Tower

The Maiden Tower, Baku

Here is a heartening story from Azerbaijan. In the capital, Baku, an historic local landmark known as the Maiden's Tower has been home to swifts for many years. Holes in its crumbling walls have provided nestplaces for about 250 Swifts for the past 30 or 40 years.

The tower is now being repaired in order to combat a hundred years of weather damage. But the repair, when completed, will leave only about 40 holes usable by the Swifts.

Fortunately, a project is underway to install additional specially-designed Swift nestboxes on nearby local buildings to compensate for the loss. This work is being carried out on the initiative of the State Historical-Architectural Reserve of Azerbaijan, whose Deputy Director, Samir Nuriyev, is making a presentation of the Baku Swift Project at our Cambridge InternationalConference in April 2014.

For a fascinating preview, listen to this podcast of an interview with Samir on Irish Radio. Also, for more information, visit www.swift-conservation.org, whose Director, Edward Mayer, offered valuable advice to Samir and his team.

New accommodation in nearby building

What should you feed a Swift?

Any experienced Swift rehabber will tell you that giving Swifts a diet of catmeat, mealworms and the like will have disastrous consequences. Yet, intuitively, that's what most of us would do if we didn't know better. Well-meaning, but misguided, we reason that the Swift is an insectivorous bird, so it will welcome a substitute meat diet if we haven't got any insects to hand.

So, we know anecdotally that you should avoid certain foods when bringing on a Swift, but now there is scientific evidence to support the assertion. An article appearing in a recent issue of JZAR, the Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research describes the results of an experiment carried out by Enric Fusté and colleagues at the Centre de Recuperació de Fauna Selvatge de Torreferrussa in Catalunya.
The team hand-reared a total of 116 chicks which they divided into four groups, each fed a different diet:

Diets with good results for Swifts:

1. cricket diet, based on house crickets (Acheta domesticus) and wax moth larvae (Galleria mellonella)
2. mealworm diet, based on mealworm larvae (Tenebrio molitor). 

Two “meat” diets were also tried with much worse results:
3. rat mince diet, a specific pathogen-free laboratory rat mince; 
4. kibble diet, a formula based on a high-protein–low-carbohydrate cat food; 
and two “insect” diets: 
All the chicks were given vitamin and other supplements to ensure that they were not put at undue risk.

The results were clear: birds fed on the meat diets (3 and 4) had significantly lower weights than those fed on diets (1 and 2). Additionally, features such as feather growth and feather quality were significantly lower in the meat-fed groups. You can download a pdf file of the complete report here. We are also fortunate that Enric Fusté is giving a talk at our Cambridge International Swift Conference next April.

Swift and Positive Change at Premier Inn Exeter

This is a heartening story of how a major hotel chain is providing accommodation for Swifts and other wildlife in its new developments. We thought it worth reblogging their press release in full.

Premier Inn Exeter, Honiton Road, is opening its doors to some very special guests: guests which will travel thousands of miles, battling the elements and crossing oceans before settling down in their comfortable hotel.

The guests I am referring to are Swifts, the small migratory birds with distinctive curved wings often seen in the sky on warm summer evenings. These magnificent birds make the epic journey from Africa twice a year, tracking the warmer climates across the earth; a breeding adult Swift can travel up to 4 million miles in its lifetime, stopping only to breed.

A computer generated image of a new
Premier Inn Hotel in Cambridge

In recent years these wonderful birds have found it increasingly difficult to find nest space on our shores. They are an amber listed species in the UK, meaning the birds are in decline and in need of protection.

Whitbread is always looking for ways in which it can positively impact on the environment, whether it is through saving water or reducing our carbon footprint. So doing our part to help these birds was a challenge we leapt at.

The RSPB has advised Whitbread on the best way to give these birds a safe place to nest. As a result of our joint efforts, Premier Inn Exeter, Honiton Road, now has 21 Swift boxes installed into the fabric of the hotel, recreating the natural space the birds need to reproduce.

Now travellers human and avian can enjoy a well-earned rest after a hard journey. Inspired by our endeavours in Exeter and with the support of the RSPB, we are introducing similar bird boxes to our Exmouth, Central Exeter and Portsmouth schemes, which will be suitable for a range of different species, including House Sparrows and Starlings, whose numbers are also in rapid decline.

Should these trials be successful, and given the size of our new hotel pipeline, the sky really could be the limit for Swifts and other bird species. It’s another example of how we are leading the hospitality industry to be more environmentally friendly.

All credit to Stephen Fitt of the RSPB and Edward Mayer of Swift Conservation who advised Premier Inn.

Cherwell Swifts Conservation Project - 2013 report

Last year we hosted Chris Mason's 2012 report. This is an update describing an impressive amount of activity.

Contributed by Chris Mason

Main Aim

Working with volunteers and the Cherwell District Council to:

• find and protect Swifts’ traditional nest sites;
• encourage provision of new nest sites;
• encourage interest in Swifts and awareness of the risks they face.

This year Swifts were found to be nesting

under the eaves of St Etheldreda’s

church, Horley

Summer of 2013

The summer came in two distinct halves. May was so cool that for Swifts to find food must have been very difficult. I had several reports of eggs being ejected from nests and nests being deserted. June was only slightly better, but suddenly towards the end of the first week of July a period of settled warm days began. This was ideal for Swifts feeding young and also brought in good numbers of prospecting birds.

Cherwell District Council

I continue to get great support from Sue Marchand (Cherwell District Council). We meet regularly to discuss topics such as Swifts and new developments in Bicester, links with Housing Associations, Council guidelines for urban biodiversity. We have had great support from her and the Council Ecologist in connection with proposed work/development at ‘Swift’ properties, mapping of Swift records and our links with the Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre.

Headlines

1. Banbury Swift Watch

We have made a start on collecting data about the Swifts in Banbury. We identified 13 buildings with Swift’s nest and several other places where screaming parties were noted. A nest was found at the Banbury Cricket Club pavilion (completed in 1996); a nice record and a reminder that Swifts do find new sites if they are available. All these records have been mapped. We will continue the search in 2014.

2. Bodicote

Reg Tipping has produced a remarkable record of the Swifts’ nest places in Bodicote. He’s recorded nearly 40 buildings they have used there over the years, and the good news is that he saw 33 of them occupied this year. How fortunate to have such a good Swift friend here!

3. Bloxham.

Alison Urwick spent many hours watching Swifts in Bloxham. She found 14 occupied nests and several other ‘hot spots’ – a great piece of work which will be an invaluable record. We plan to have a meeting in the village next spring, show the film and hopefully enlist more help to keep an eye out for other nests.

4. Drayton (nr.Banbury) and Ledwell.

Pete Tuzzio in Drayton and Clive Hill in Ledwell have both established Swift’s nests at their homes from scratch. This summer both had 4 nesting pairs.

Clive has now had 43 Swifts fledge from his boxes since Royston Scroggs inspired him to make provision for Swifts during building work at his home 10 summers ago.

Clive then encouraged Pete to do something similar, and now, apart from successfully persuading Swifts to share his house, many customers at a certain barbers in Banbury learn a lot about Swifts whilst having their hair cut!

6. Combe

Here is another extraordinary story from Richard in Combe. One of his many nesting pairs (these were first time breeders) laid 2 eggs. Richard knew pretty well which day they would hatch. Incubation is 19 days, give or take a day. So he was looking out for them. One morning he noticed that both eggs had disappeared. He found them on the ground below the nest. One egg was clearly beyond recovery, but the other was only partly broken and still showed signs of life. He took it indoors, and put it in the airing cupboard for an hour, by which time the hatchling was trying to push out of the shell. Having carefully removed the remains of the shell, and because the true parents had obviously given up on their offspring, he decided to pop the chick into another nest where there were 2 nestlings of 2 days old. Happily the adopted parents accepted the addition to their brood and all 3 subsequently fledged successfully. 

Surprisingly this was Richard’s only pair with 3 offspring this year – an indication perhaps of the unfavourable conditions early in the season. In all 15 young birds fledged from the 7 nests which reared young.

One of these recently-installed nest boxes, in

Kings Avenue, Bicester was occupied this year.

7. Nest boxes

At least one of the nest boxes put up by Sanctuary (the Residential Social Landlords of the 1950’s council-built properties along Kings Avenue Bicester) was used by Swifts this summer.

Nest boxes were installed at

St Martin’s church, Bladon

8. Swift Tower

The Banbury Ornithological Society has agreed to install a Swift tower at its reserve in Bicester. Funds have been raised to cover most of the costs. We now have to get planning permission. I am hoping the tower will have been installed for the 2014 season.

Summary of events and action

Evening walks: Somerton, Stratton Audley, Launton, Upper Heyford, Lower Heyford and Steeple Aston

Talks: Leafield Primary School, Bletchingdon and Caring for God’s Acre conference in Benson.

Displays: Banbury (Library and Farmer’s Market), Deddington (Library and Farmer’s Market), Bicester and TVERC Recorders Conference (Oxford).

Nest boxes: installed at Bladon church and sites in Bodicote, Bicester and Islip.

Film Swift Stories: Extracts shown to staff at Cherwell DC. We are planning to show the complete film in Kirtlington on Saturday 8^th February next at 7.30 pm.

Care and Rehabilitation

Gillian Westray in Broadway Worcs, cared for a record number of Swifts Swallows and House Martins this summer (136). Of these an amazing 120 were successfully rehabilitated and released. There were surprisingly few from our patch. Father Andrew found a grounded bird near the church in Carterton in May, and later in the season another was taken to Gillian from Charlbury. Both these birds were later successfully released. The care and rehabilitation of these birds is a highly specialised job and taking them to an expert offers them by far the best chance of making their long migration to Africa.

Plans and hopes for 2014:

1. Build on the survey work begun in Banbury and Bloxham.
2. Extend the use of mapping of Swifts nest sites.
3. Complete the installation of the tower in Bicester.
4. Attend the International Swift Conference in Cambridge (April 8^th-10^th).
5. Promote ‘Swift Stories’ as widely as possible.
6. Continue to campaign for Swift nest provision in appropriate new developments.

Many thanks to all who have recorded Swifts; talked to friends and neighbours, builders, developers and planners; climbed ladders and church towers; made nest boxes; carried out Swift surveys; organised walks and talks; sent me information and otherwise supported the project.

Here is a map of Cherwell:

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