A Swift one...This weekend?

As the warm weather continues and the winds hopefully die down don’t forget to look out for the return of one of our favourite summer migrants, the swift. Many birds return to the breeding grounds in the spring, some will remain in Africa. Swifts are migratory throughout their range. They arrive in the UK in the last week of April or early May, and stay only long enough to breed. Swifts feed almost exclusively on the aerial plankton of flying insects and airborne spiders of small to moderate size. They mainly feed at around 50-100 m, but sometimes weather conditions force them down to lower levels. Turbulence can sweep insects far higher in the air, and swifts have been observed following these swarms to about 1,000m.　

You can help swifts in a number of ways:

• Leave existing nest sites undisturbed
• If improvements are needed to masonry, fascias or soffits, provide new access holes that exactly match the location of previous ones
• If providing new nest sites, it is better to create internal nest sites as these will last longer and you’d hardly know they were there
• If internal nest spaces aren’t possible, external nestboxes can be used

Groups of swifts will often fly at low level, close to their nesting site, making a high pitched screech- these are known as screaming parties. The locations of screaming parties usually indicated that there is a nest nearby.

So if you see those screaming beauties this weekend don’t forget to let us know.