Low budget Swift Tower- Brigsteer Wetlands Reserve

Although Swift Towers can be quite expensive, it doesn't have to be that way if you use a simple design and volunteer labour. This is a good strategy, as Swift towers are known to be difficult to attract occupants, so success with a small project can always be expanded later on.

Robert Pocklington – a National Trust Ranger at Sizergh, South Cumbria obtained some funding through the Trust to make and erect an 8m Swift tower at their Brigsteer Wetland. Rob approached me (Graham Fell) of Kendal Men In Sheds as we have been making swift boxes for a few years and I had developed an inexpensive Swift Micro Caller. The budget was just £300 and I volunteered to do all the necessary work for the calling system and a 20W solar powered panel and controls to power it. I decided to use a 12V small motorbike battery with 9Ah power rating.

8 metre pole

We were lucky in obtaining an 8m telephone pole for free and the site was the edge of a wetland area that Rob had made some 7 years earlier. Each summer swifts were to be seen over the scrape and pond so he was sure a Swift tower would help to increase numbers in the area.

I approached a solar panel company for advice as I had never done this before and we decided to go with their system which was more than adequate for the Micro Caller. So the panel is mounted horizontally on the top of the pole which is not ideal for collecting solar power but it ensures the panel (and its stainless mounting sheet) is well attached to the pole with no risk of coming off. The area is known as the Lyth Valley and is subject to strong winds from Morecambe Bay estuary and localised flooding of the valley. A fellow Shedder I know made the wooden box to house the electronics from a 1930’s oak dining table and he came up with a solution of how to attach the swift boxes to a 9” telephone pole.

6 nest boxes

We made a triangular mock-up that allowed us to make boxes about 370mm long from local larch and we took advice from Ros Taylor of our local Kendal Swift Group and made the upper three boxes with side entry and the lower three boxes with entry up through the floor. There would be room on the pole for more boxes but we felt six to be about right. The boxes were made by the Sizergh NT volunteers.

I assembled all the electrical parts in the box which was well sealed against the weather and then car body underseal covered the whole box for waterproofing. We decided to have the system running all the time as this kept the 12V timer charged and then a separate switch allows the system to be switched on in early May and then off in early August.

Control electronics

Rob, myself and another NT Ranger then took the pole to Brigsteer and in about 5 hours we had attached the boxes, solar panel and got the pole into the hole. Then the wooden control box was attached near the pole about 3 feet off the ground for ease of access and to prevent flood water getting in. This was in September 2021 so we will see whether we have breeding success in 2022.

It was completed within the £300 budget with all labour volunteered. Though not visually appealing, the main objective of keeping within the budget and achieving a practical pole will in time prove to be a success.

Contact details: 

Graham Fell
Rob Pocklington

An Appreciation of Judith Wakelam

Judith releasing a Swift. Photo Nick Upton

Judith's involvement with swifts began thirty years ago when she went to see the late Chris Mead for advice on what to do with a grounded adult swift she had picked up. She described how Chris was sitting in his big chair with a swift, looking for all the world like a brooch, on his sweater. Thereafter, she became an accomplished rehabber, processing up to thirty a season, both grounded adults and chicks which had fallen from the nest. Feeding nestlings every two hours plays havoc with your sleep patterns, but she never complained. She became well known to local vets and wildlife centres, who were happy, and relieved, to pass on to Judith swifts that had been brought to them by members of the public.

In her later years, she gave many talks to local groups and at conferences. In particular, she made valuable contributions to the biennial international swift conferences in Cambridge, Stettin and Tel Aviv. She was a natural communicator, with a puckish sense of humour.

Judith was not just about swifts. She was interested in all aspects of nature and wildlife. Look into the small pond in her tiny back garden teeming with newts and frogs; look at the bundle of hair that she took from Tess, her German Shepherd, to put out on a tree for nest building tits and goldfinches to steal; look at the borders planted with flower species irresistible to bees and butterflies - all witness to her passion for nature. And there is more. She helped her friend Norma with her deer projects, specially muntjac. She went on toad patrol every year, holding up traffic to let the toads get safely across the road, She kept careful records of the wildlife in the area, her favourites being the barn owls in the churchyard and the grey wagtails breeding in a nearby rivulet. 

Swifts at All Saints' Worlington. Photo Judith Wakelam

It was Judith who blew the whistle on the destruction of a swift colony near her home, leading to the creation of a vibrant new colony in All Saints' Worlington.

And, as you would expect, she had boxes for her beloved swifts, with cameras installed, so she could enjoy their antics from the comfort of her kitchen. 

Mastery of the Skies. Photo Judith Wakelam

Another wildlife-related passion was photography. It is a measure of her talent that she won the Oxford Museum of Natural History's 'Summer Swifts Competition' in 2014 with her picture 'Mastery of the Skies'.

But perhaps the greatest buzz of all for Judith were her annual safaris to the world's wildlife hotspots: the Serengeti, the Okovango Delta, the cloud forests of Costa Rica and many more. Judith enjoyed companionship so she always took a friend on these trips.

Judith was a very private person, revealing only to her closest friends, details of her background. She rarely spoke about her health until it was clear that things were going seriously wrong.

Judith, you will be sorely missed by the many people whose lives you touched.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord,
 and let perpetual light shine upon her.
 May she rest in peace. 

Jake Allsop

SAW 2021 Events

Sat 3rd -Sun 11th July

 

Swift Awareness Week begins today!

Search for an event near you here

 

#SwiftAwarenessWeek

Cottenham Village Hall

Triangular colony boxes in the apex of a gable have become quite popular. We were presented with an opportunity in a gable which had projecting beams, which could have limited the size of the triangle. However, the shape contained by the beams lead us to a new and attractive shape. which might look good in any gable.

This idea is appropriate. for shallower roof slopes, in this case, 30°.  Normally, a triangle has 1, 2 then 3 ..  chambers on each level. With a shallow roof, it may be better with 2, 4 then  6 ....

However, in this case, we chopped off the corners of the triangle and went for 2, 3, 3 giving 8 nest chambers.

The resulting colony box would make an attractive feature in any gable with a shallow sloping roof, and easy for architects to include as a module in their designs

Computer model

Internal structure

Installation complete with tweeter

Village Hall Pavilion with swift boxes

PVC nest boxes

Some years ago, I visited a friend,  Maurice Wilkinson, who had an array of nestboxes for Swifts and House Martins on his house, with a high occupancy rate. Some of the Swift boxes were made of PVC, the same material that is used for soffits. This inspired the idea for the Model 30, with its PVC roof resulting in John Stimpson upping his production to over 26,000 nestboxes by March 2021

Maurice's PVC swift boxes have now had swifts in them for 5 years, and there is no sign of degradation. One might have expected some damage caused by Swift claws on the entrance hole, but they remain unscathed.

Here is a short video of nestling Swifts in one of Maurice's PVC boxes:

PVC as a material is nice to work with, it screws together to make a robust construction, it has good thermal properties, it is lighter than wood, it will never rot, so what not to like? With a suitable primer, it can be painted. It is more expensive than plywood, but not prohibitively so.

We have recently looked at making nest boxes out of 9mm PVC for the complete structure. As a result, we have built 3 prototypes: A Model 30, a Model 31 and a nest box suitable for embedding in external wall insulation (EWI). 

Our conclusion is that PVC is a promising material.

PVC Model 30

As the Model 30 is intended for exposed situations, built in PVC, it will be even more resilient, especially from water that may run down the back. This prototype was made by Simon Evans. The body is painted with Sandtex 'Mid Stone'.

PVC Model 30 painted with Sandtex 'Mid Stone'

PVC Model 31

The Model 31 is designed to go under broad horizontal eaves. It is intended for well-sheltered locations, so the main advantage of PVC here is its light weight. Here we made a double box:

Computer model

PVC Model 31. The small corner pieces attached to the front enable precise relocation of the front after installation

PVC EWI box

We were asked for a solution to embed in External Wall Insulation. When EWI is applied, it is between 90mm and 110mm thick with an additional thickness of render on top, but there is not enough depth for a Swift box. There are 2 choices, either penetrate the wall or have the box projecting outside the insulation. We described the former approach here, using a rendered S Brick. As embedding plywood in EWI is probably not a good idea, we developed a solution that does not penetrate the wall, made of PVC:

Section drawing

Appearance after installation

 

The PVC used here is coated in 'Anthracite Grey'

Duchy Big Bird Box survey 2020

There seems to be a gathering momentum for provisioning nest places for cavity-nesting birds in new development, particularly in the south west, where the Duchy has an ambitious policy of providing an average of one nest place per dwelling. What is often lacking is adequate monitoring of these projects, but this report by Dr Thais Martins is very welcome, providing valuable data to support what we advocate.

Although it is early days, the results reported so far are most encouraging with significant numbers of House Sparrows, Starlings, House Martins and the first prospecting Swifts. This is a good example of community engagement in a citizen science project. See The Big Duchy Bird Box Survey

Photo: Hugh Hastings and the Duchy of Cornwall

Swifts often take longer to find new nesting places, but it bodes well for a future with vibrant Swift colonies in all the developments surveyed.

There is much detail in the paper highlighting occupancy rates by different species in different box types  and on different aspects.

As the data builds up over the years, this should provide some guidance as to what works best.

There is now a common understanding that a Swift brick can be considered as a 'Universal' bird box, and that sparrow terraces are not cost effective. The numbers of birds found occupying Swift bricks in Duchy developments confirm the universal nature of Swift bricks.

In this study, of 515  swift bricks, 192 were used by House Sparrows, Starlings and House Martins, but of 12 sparrow nest chambers in 4 sparrow terraces, only 2 were used. Although not significant at the 5% level it does point towards House Sparrows preferring Swift bricks

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