Due to sterling efforts by a group of meditators, and lots of resolute determination from several people, a swift nesting box has finally made it up to its position high up on the back of the ‘Flexible Space’ (the red shed visible from across the valley.)
We are hoping to attract swifts to the box, which was given to us by Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, by playing attraction calls from a speaker inside the box. There are swifts already in the area so they should hear the calls and will come to have a look.
The calls are a looped recording of a pair of swifts calling in tandem from inside their nest as other swifts investigate outside. The calls are played on a timer, for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening, because these are likely times when swifts will be ‘screaming’ at nest sites: the screaming is a group activity that happens in June and July, whereby young swifts in ‘screaming parties’ tour local nest sites, flying up to and calling at each site in turn.
More (much more!) information about swifts can be found at: swiftconservation.org
Nesting boxes for Tits and Redstarts have also been placed around the land. There will be a blog post soon about these bird boxes, or meanwhile please feel free to find out more or if you have any questions: just email landmatters@samatha.org and we will be happy to reply!
The caller has been switched off again now as there are very few Swifts left in the UK now – they are almost all back in Africa now.
Unusually, there was a report of a large number of birds seen going in to the Flexible Space through the door, and then coming out again, but we are unsure if these were definitely Swifts. If you have further info, please do comment below.
The speaker from the caller is now going to be placed OUTSIDE instead of indoors!!!
We don’t want birds coming in through the door and getting stuck – they have their own entrance at the back!