The Lemon Fool

Swifts are in trouble!

Sign the petition asking the House of Commons to discuss making Swift Bricks compulsory in new houses.

https://bit.ly/3x5slLr

AiY(D)

Thanks for this, happy to have igned and hope they reach the required 100,000.

Only a couple of weeks or so before our swallows return, hopefully.

64,880 including mine!

[Friday 20:00]

I have no idea of the implications but before long we will have the same problem that we have with bats. We had a very old house across the road from me and it was to be demolished and a new house erected (This has now been done to the huge benefit of the locality) However it needed a bat survey before demolition, at great expense and delay for the new owners.

I love swifts of course but I am certainly not going to sign some petition just because it turns up on a website that I frequent.

Dod

A quick google says that the minimum recommended size for a swift box is 45cm by 20 (that's 18 inches by 8 in old money). I hadn't quite appreciated that fledgling swifts needed space to practice flying inside the box! (Although I did know that they can't easily lift off again once they're on the ground, so they only get one chance to do the flying thing properly after they hatch.)

Hmmm, that's quite a big ask from a two bedroom starter home. Still, the best of luck to the petition organisers, because the problem is real enough. It certainly needs discussing.

It's been some years now since our (deepish rural) neighbours have seen the swifts and martens nesting in their outdoor buildings. They reckon it's because of the steep decline in the insect population, which is a different problem. Mind you, in our neck of the woods it's the sudden proliferation of crows, rooks and nest-raiding magpies that's been driving away the smaller birds. Swift boxes are likely to be only one part of the solution.

BJ

An interesting (and generally positive) blog viewpoint from the UK communications guy at Mitsubishi. Who make heat pumps, of course. Which make noise. Which birds tend not to like. https://les.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/th ... neighbours

But he's keen to do his bit. As his other cross-posts indicate, this chap has fitted a swift box to his modern house in Maidenhead, and he is/was (2018) hoping to find tenants for it. His latest wheeze is/was to play non-stop swift screams (his word, not mine) through a loudspeaker, in an attempt to make the summer visitors feel at home. It would be interesting to know how the experiment went? But he seems to have fallen silent.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:A quick google says that the minimum recommended size for a swift box is 45cm by 20 (that's 18 inches by 8 in old money). I hadn't quite appreciated that fledgling swifts needed space to practice flying inside the box! (Although I did know that they can't easily lift off again once they're on the ground, so they only get one chance to do the flying thing properly after they hatch.)

Hmmm, that's quite a big ask from a two bedroom starter home. Still, the best of luck to the petition organisers, because the problem is real enough. It certainly needs discussing.

It's been some years now since our (deepish rural) neighbours have seen the swifts and martens nesting in their outdoor buildings. They reckon it's because of the steep decline in the insect population, which is a different problem. Mind you, in our neck of the woods it's the sudden proliferation of crows, rooks and nest-raiding magpies that's been driving away the smaller birds. Swift boxes are likely to be only one part of the solution.

BJ

If I may be so bold as to correct you, martens do not nest as far as I know. It is martins and probably house martins that you are referring to.

On the general subject, I am always wary about signing any petition that comes along because things are seldom as straightforward as they seem.

Crows rooks and/or magpies are a menace and of course have few if any natural predators and farmers these days cannot afford the time time or money to shoot them, more's the pity.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:Crows rooks and/or magpies are a menace and of course have few if any natural predators and farmers these days cannot afford the time time or money to shoot them, more's the pity.

If I may be so bold as to correct you , shooting crows, rooks or magpies has been all but illegal for some twelve years now. (In England, at least.) Farmers do have permission, in principle, to shoot the first two if they can categorically prove that they're disproportionately damaging crops. But you'd have to catch a magpie in flagrante before you could legally dispatch it. That's a problem for small birds of all descriptions.

Good luck to the petition, anyway!

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

Dod101 wrote:Crows rooks and/or magpies are a menace and of course have few if any natural predators and farmers these days cannot afford the time time or money to shoot them, more's the pity.

If I may be so bold as to correct you , shooting crows, rooks or magpies has been all but illegal for some twelve years now. (In England, at least.) Farmers do have permission, in principle, to shoot the first two if they can categorically prove that they're disproportionately damaging crops. But you'd have to catch a magpie in flagrante before you could legally dispatch it. That's a problem for small birds of all descriptions.

Good luck to the petition, anyway!

BJ

I did not know that but the fact is that crows etc probably have no natural predators. I moved from rural to semi rural some years back and although shooting crows was never much of a sport it certainly used to take place where I previously lived. It would be too expensive a way of controlling them now anyway.

Dod

This bird is designed to cross the Sahara 40 times, spending most of its life in the SKY. Staying loyal to 1 hole in someone's wall, every year it will come HOME to us.

AiY(D)

The petition was successful

Thank you for all who took the time to sign the petition.

These birds are genuinely in seriously trouble

AiY(D)

12 days since they should have arrived back , but I haven't seen any swifts wheeling above. There were only half a dozen last year where , once , there seemed to be dozens and even more when joined by their screeching youngsters.

marronier wrote:12 days since they should have arrived back , but I haven't seen any swifts wheeling above. There were only half a dozen last year where , once , there seemed to be dozens and even more when joined by their screeching youngsters.

Me neither. And no swallows either, apart from one loner which was seen heading north about four weeks ago. It's all a bit worrying.

Part of me could hardly blame them if they've stayed down in France, which has been a damn sight more friendly this year than our unseasonably cold April and May. (Currently with an added northerly blast to make the migration doubly unattractive.) But I still fret that the migration instinct might shift permanently if we get too many years like this?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

marronier wrote:12 days since they should have arrived back , but I haven't seen any swifts wheeling above. There were only half a dozen last year where , once , there seemed to be dozens and even more when joined by their screeching youngsters.

Me neither. And no swallows either, apart from one loner which was seen heading north about four weeks ago. It's all a bit worrying.

Part of me could hardly blame them if they've stayed down in France, which has been a damn sight more friendly this year than our unseasonably cold April and May. (Currently with an added northerly blast to make the migration doubly unattractive.) But I still fret that the migration instinct might shift permanently if we get too many years like this?

BJ

We have some starlings nesting in the loft above our ensuite bathroom. Noisy devils at 5am in the morning . Not sure how they got past the eaves guards though .

I'm going to put a few bird boxes up this year. About time I did my bit.

AiY(D)

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:We have some starlings nesting in the loft above our ensuite bathroom. Noisy devils at 5am in the morning . Not sure how they got past the eaves guards though .

Oh, don't get me started on starlings. I had them nesting in the box eaves of my last house, thirty years ago. At four am every morning, they'd put their little hobnailed boots on and perform a clog dance that extended along the whole length of the house. Cost me a helluva lot of sleep, which I could barely afford. (And I slept better than you!) Not to mention the piles of acidic crap that can take the paint off a car.

So now they say starlings are an endangered species. I've tried to feel sorry for them, I really have, but so far no joy. I mean, what consideration have they ever given me?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:We have some starlings nesting in the loft above our ensuite bathroom. Noisy devils at 5am in the morning . Not sure how they got past the eaves guards though .

Oh, don't get me started on starlings. I had them nesting in the box eaves of my last house, thirty years ago. At four am every morning, they'd put their little hobnailed boots on and perform a clog dance that extended along the whole length of the house. Cost me a helluva lot of sleep, which I could barely afford. (And I slept better than you!) Not to mention the piles of acidic crap that can take the paint off a car.

So now they say starlings are an endangered species. I've tried to feel sorry for them, I really have, but so far no joy. I mean, what consideration have they ever given me?

BJ

Yes ... I'm fortunate as I take my hearing aids out when I go to bed. But after I've had my morning shower and put them back on I can hear them perfectly. So I don't put the hearing aids back on until downstairs now. So when they've left the nest I will make sure they can't get back in but I will start to work out how I can provide some sort of alternative for them.

AiY(D)

I've just pulled up on the drive at 10:30am and noticed about a dozen swifts flying around. Two pairs were certainly investigating building nests on the gable ends of the houses directly opposite our home.

Good news

AiY(D)

Source

AiY(D)

Yesterday evening there was a whole bunch of swifts swooping and diving about around outside the Church in Kintbury, and making quite a racket.

20 or 30 of them at a guess.

First I've seen this year.

Create a high home for swifts

Make one, or as this photograph buy one (or if you read the article make or buy more than one)


AiY(D)