Welcome to Action for Swifts, a commentary on the activities, of people who care about Swifts. We welcome guest posts, especially from Swifts Local Network (SLN) members. Please send to actionforswifts@gmail.com for publication. Also see our Facebook page for more stories and case studies
We have shown that Swifts move into nest boxes with nest forms more quickly than nest boxes without nest forms. There is also some evidence that Swifts are more likely to attempt breeding in their first year of occupancy. With an average life span of 7 years, Swifts only have 4 or 5 breeding seasons, so an increase of 1 is significant. We have also shown that Swifts seem to show no preference for…
I was idly scrolling through some old Facebook posts when I came across a post describing the additional 24 nest boxes that we installed a t Edgecombe flats in 2021 where I was reminded that we painted every other chamber black inside. See here . I had forgotten about our experiment, but in 2023 we surveyed these boxes and found 16 of them occupied. This was a properly designed experiment. The…
A number of times we have implemented nest places for Swifts in thick brick walls (e.g. here ), this is just another example where we did something slightly different. The wall in question is about 35 cm thick - 3 layers of bricks. First we removed an outer stretcher, which was quite easy with lime mortar. The next layer of brick was more difficult and had to be drilled out and removing small…
The Cambridge System seems to be well-liked by Swifts. Perhaps they like the seclusion afforded by having to travel through a tunnel to reach their nesting place. Wherever there is unused roof-space, an attic affords the opportunity to install internal nest boxes accessed via an entrance in the outer leaf, and a tunnel connecting the entrance to the nest box. It requires less disruption of the…
I have to admit luke-warm enthusiasm for swift towers because so few can demonstrate success. However, we have enjoyed success with the Trumpington Community Orchard Swift Tower , and at least one other tower, at Tice's Meadow nature reserve in Surrey, of the same design. Both of these towers had 5 pairs in 11 chambers in 2022. Proposed Swift tower with 20 chambers (see model ) We have also had…
Back in 2015, we visited Nick Watts at Vine House Farm in Lincolnshire, where we saw his wildlife towers , which we thought were a fine inspiration for a tower suitable for Swifts as well. This vision has now been realised. A view from the south west This magnificent hexagonal building is 8 metres high. Louvres on 5 sides give access to 50 Swift boxes, hoping to emulate the success of Swift boxes…
With the drive towards zero carbon, external wall insulation (EWI) on older houses will result in the loss of many Swifts and bats, but it is also an opportunity to provide many more nest places. In particular, the S Brick is an easy to install solution for Swifts and other small cavity-nesting birds. [A solution is also needed for bats!] External Wall insulation is usually anything between 90mm…
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…
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…
Sat 3rd -Sun 11th July Swift Awareness Week begins today! Search for an event near you here #SwiftAwarenessWeek
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,…
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…
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…
The SLN Swifts & Planning Group has produced a paper advocating the provision of Swift bricks as a preferred solution for a range of small cavity-nesting species. It comes from a realisation that this will have better outcomes for these species than trying to satisfy all species independently. The paper makes the points that integral or internal nest boxes are: more aesthetically pleasing…
Suffolk Wildlife Trust have built a new visitor centre at Carlton Marshes Nature Reserve . 8 S Bricks have been built in to the timber-frame construction, by making entrances in the wooden cladding. Steel plates surround the entrances to deter woodpeckers and starlings from attempting to enlarge them. The nest chambers penetrate 50mm into the insulation which is insufficient to cause any heat loss…
A swift's wing length is about 170mm, thus any box with a minimum dimension less than 170mm will require the swift to bend its wings in order to turn. This post is a brief analysis of just how much a wing needs to bend for a range of box widths. A number of nest boxes on the market have a minimum dimension of 100mm, which requires a wing to bend over 180° in order for the bird to turn. The…
Open eaves, with breeding Swifts, are frequently turned into closed eaves with PVC soffits. This is an example of such a project in Cambridge in 2020. The pictures below show 5 neat holes in the Soffit of Gray House, a block of flats in Cambridge. Holes 1, 3 and 5 have an S Brick eaves box above them which contain any birds that enter these holes and they act as a barrier for any birds that might…
Paul Worden ( @paulworden2015) is employed as a site manager at Lancaster Royal Grammar School where there is a wide range of buildings dating from 1852 to 2011. Paul has sent us a simple way to install Swift boxes in an old stone building. There are often situations where no off-the-shelf swift box product is suitable, and a custom design is needed. This is an example of one such case. Back in…
Tim Collins lives in a village just 3km from the shores of Rutland Water. In the last 17 years, he has built a thriving colony of 26 pairs of swifts in DIY nest boxes of his own design. Tim's success is down to a combination of his proximity to a major source of food, and clearly the Swifts like his nest boxes. Tim's nest boxes are notable for their extreme simplicity - a simple box with a bottom…
Swavesey Memorial Hall was built in 1919. It has a number of Swifts and House Sparrows breeding under open eaves. As part of the Over and Swavesey Swift Conservation project, we devised a way of adding more nest boxes on the gable. The gable faces NW The challenge is to do something that does not compromise the appearance of the building. The eaves of the gable are about 170mm wide and over 200mm…
Some time ago, we sent some half-brick entrance pieces to Carolyn Knowlman ( sosmartinets.com ) for a project in Amboise. Following this, an opportunity arose during a renovation, where some existing swift nest sites were under threat. Offcuts used to make entrances Rather than use entrance pieces cast out of concrete, the stone mason used offcuts to make his own entrance pieces. The nest sites…
Century House, Swavesey was reroofed 2 years ago. As a result a number of Swift nests were lost, and the roof was left in a state that Swifts could get into the roof space, resulting in some fatalities. As part of the Over & Swavesey Swift Conservation Project, organised by Helen Pletts, it was decided to insert 8 S Bricks in the gable. It is a solid wall with no access inside, so everything had…
There is very little research on acceptable parameters for Swift nest boxes, so we have to rely on anecdotes. This is an example of Swifts nesting in a very small space indeed, perhaps giving a lower bound on what Swifts might find acceptable. We are grateful to Catherine Day for talking about Shepcot House at the Bristol Swift Conference, Nov 2019 and to Mike Priaulx for the pictures and the…
Swift boxes are normally thought of as 'external' or 'internal'. John Crowther of Stroud wanted to retrofit swift bricks into his stone walls. When John removed a stone, he found that there was no cavity and the space created was L 290mm x D 125mm x H 100mm. First thoughts of fitting an S Brick would have reduced the 125mm depth to about 100mm, which might have been enough space, but a 10cm depth…
This is the end result of the project reported here: actionforswifts.blogspot.com/2019/09/swift-brick-camera-box.html S Bricks do not have enough headroom to house a camera, which is why 4 out of the 10 Swift bricks in this project are a custom design. The 'before' picture: the hip roof in the middle is to be converted into a gable S Bricks installed 4 custom camera boxes installed The 'after'…