Friends of Swifts

Wife bought me four swift boxes for my birthday this year, local guy came and gave me some idea about the best position for them and then sorted me out with a timer and caller to attract them.
I knew nothing about these amazing little birds until a talk at a book launch a few years ago, these birds don't stop....literally the only time they land is to nest, they sleep on the wing by switching off one half of their brain at a time.
There was a huge campaign being led by Hannah Bourne-Taylor to try and get swift bricks fitted in every new build. Which seemed to be gaining some traction before the election.
 
Great birds - especially to glider pilots. I have many long distance cross-country gliding/hang-gliding/paragliding flights under my belt thanks to them. :cool:
 
billy nomates said:
Wife bought me four swift boxes for my birthday this year, local guy came and gave me some idea about the best position for them and then sorted me out with a timer and caller to attract them.
I knew nothing about these amazing little birds until a talk at a book launch a few years ago, these birds don't stop....literally the only time they land is to nest, they sleep on the wing by switching off one half of their brain at a time.
There was a huge campaign being led by Hannah Bourne-Taylor to try and get swift bricks fitted in every new build. Which seemed to be gaining some traction before the election.
Click to expand...
billy, did you get some mates? IE any joy with the boxes.

John, cheers for sharing............... you probably know I work in new build....my trade is transient I cover 3 to 5 sites at a time ,have probably now sealed up into 4 figures of houses.today I saw me second type of swift brick yeah get in 2 sites now building in a nest site, some despair in just how many sites that do nowt. But that is sort of expected if one works site.

I'd like to add a note here if a bricky ever reads this thread...mate the oval nest hole must be horizontal not vertical !!!! A swift need to fly into that hole...yes I was told tonight of this error that might actually mean the effort of building in a swift box.so so rare in new houses, might be unusable to a swift. I have hope that these air sythes might have the skills to negate that error, but the consensus seems to be no.

Whilst, I adore the efforts of folks trying to put up breeding places for swift, I personally have more concern over lack of food for them, the big picture here iis held within the little things, the life force that is the building block of not only so many birdz but also us..I mentioned this recently in another post about hirundines.the derth of numbers locally is huge this year and so are insect numbers. there is no rocket science here birds like swift need high protein food hell a kidlet might spend 2 or 3 years on the wing

Tis gonna take more than a few boxes to undo what nature is suffering from us right now....... By the same token billy,if folks don't know they can't react

If we all do little things will that be enough?
 
Hi Stu.. I actually mentioned to my wife over the summer,so far, that there haven't been many flies/blue bottles. I've noticed it. In the old days ,on a hot day ,they'd be buzzing here and buzzing there in the kitchen,livingroom and dining room annoying the heck out of me. Now, when I see them on the kitchen window wondering why they can'y get out, I open the window and let them out. A meal for a bird,I hope.

I find it all quite depressing tbh..We have just one robin in our garden. There were blue tits and goldfinches in Spring but they've disappeared. Maybe that's what they do. We do,however get a flock of 12-15 feral pigeons..white, grey black, mottled...all sorts and today they sat on the neighbour's roof for a couple of hours in the sun after they'd had a wash 'n brush up in our pond..pooing in it,too. Crows bring chunks of bread to soften in the bird bath water. We also have six of this year's magpies,too.
 
No visitors this year, boxes went up a little late. The caller just makes them aware there is suitable habitat to investigate, early next year we'll have the caller on and I hope we get what is termed "bangers" they're swifts which will hit the box to see if there's any reaction from a potential resident inside and if no reaction then they will hopefully move in.
https://devonswiftproject.co.uk/ were involved with a few local installs and it would appear it took 4 years from install to successful fledging. The guy who helped me said they'd had a few first and second year boxes prove successful and so were using the audio from that caller copied across to sd cards in the other callers as it would seem to have the golden bullet call in there somewhere.
I know there is a group of around 25 birds that seem to stay close to the local village church, whilst we have a group of 10-15 who seem to patrol a consistent route around the local back gardens and down into the town center parks.
I was also told that house sparrows will sometimes initially use the boxes, ultimately getting displace by the swifts.
 
JohnC6 said:
Hi Stu.. I actually mentioned to my wife over the summer,so far, that there haven't been many flies/blue bottles. I've noticed it. In the old days ,on a hot day ,they'd be buzzing here and buzzing there in the kitchen,livingroom and dining room annoying the heck out of me. Now, when I see them on the kitchen window wondering why they can'y get out, I open the window and let them out. A meal for a bird,I hope.

I find it all quite depressing tbh..We have just one robin in our garden. There were blue tits and goldfinches in Spring but they've disappeared. Maybe that's what they do. We do,however get a flock of 12-15 feral pigeons..white, grey black, mottled...all sorts and today they sat on the neighbour's roof for a couple of hours in the sun after they'd had a wash 'n brush up in our pond..pooing in it,too. Crows bring chunks of bread to soften in the bird bath water. We also have six of this year's magpies,too.
Click to expand...
Brits moaning about a lack of flies John. flies that drive us round the bend, that's something , is it not? Bud I work with acetoxy silicone. ( the carrier is acetic acid IE vinegar..which means common Wasp are drawn to me in my day job like a duck to water...this year all most nothing tis bad buddy.

John, we have alot of robin, I suspect that's down to how I garden there's 30 years of my insanity here, next year mark my words numbers will drop, my piteful patch won't sustain them..

Last year we would feed an astounding no of goldfinch, and blue and great tit, bud numbers always slack off early summer...........those guys need insect to bring the kids up..............We backed off feeding John due to tricho...............so that incidental makes observations somewhat difficult to work with................did find it hard watchiing our birds turn up to no food though. Goldie kids are here but not in the number they were.....good numbers of blue and great tit kids.again many worries on next year GWS sort of as expected. Flutterbies non existant no whites eating my food buddy, the insects I suffer food wise/growing wise now are NOT native

Blackbirds hmmm..our local rag has the local bird expert, bless ya Harry, worrying.........country wide ornathologists seem scared. Ahh the joy of our kids this year........John they are these bomb proof charletons ( soz for my spelling) . they look at us like this is my gaff get out of my way, I ain't movin' , We have had them in the house :runaway: A force of joy bud. Hodge heg no's down charlie fox still comes with kid/s. Sparrow hawk dwells in the ongoing chase of my babies

Mate ya know when ya see something and every fibre in one's bones says I hope I am wrong.that's where I am right now.....I can't let depression in , I'm already too dark for that. but worry I do.:(

Billy thanks for the reply, I so hope it works out for you.and them .....but yes the one question in my head right now is where is their food?
 
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