Still waiting for our Swifts to return to Sunderland (22 years running), has anyone got theirs back yet further south :)
I haven't heard of that - but I guess, left to nest "naturally", it would be very difficult for us to get to the nests to clean them out.
Wow! Can't believe this thread is still going 2 years along. Our swifts are slowly arriving. A fair few spotted over one of the nearby large bodies of water - filling up after a long journey I presume. I spotted the first over my house on the 5th May. Just 3 at the moment. I have had 2 in our nest hole, not sure whether they are already a pair or rivals for the space. If they look 3 inches to the right they would spot another potential nest hole. Silly birds.
Never seen a waxwing, :-( but in 2 visits to Titchwell Marsh have seen a marsh harrier on both occasions.
Just spotted 4 swifts out the back of ours, screeching and swooping, they are really early. Its normally late May, but they are a welcome site anytime. Now just need them to choose our nest again. Got loads of birds this year in back garden, some which seem to have been missing last few years, Goldfinches, Greenfinches in particular. :)
Some worrying news..... You may remember that we found a swift colony in a Uni building 2 years ago and last year the Uni did some refurb work on the roof. They went to great lengths to re-do the roof exactly as it was before the refurb.
We went round last night to see if the swifts were back, which they were. But unfortunately, there seemed to be a problem with me entering the roof space.... They were flying up to the fascia board and then clinging onto the wall, but were not then crawling up into the roof space. We wondered if the gap between the board and the wall was smaller.
Contacted the Uni who were most concerned. They are going to see if the fascia board can be eased off the wall slightly to see if that helps.
But we fear the swifts may have snubbed their site..,.. Really hope not - would be very sad. But the Uni has gone out of their way to do everything they can, so if the swifts do desert the site, it's not for want of trying.
I'll post any further news.
I had new fascias on my house couple of years back, then just before Swifts returned i noticed the gap they used had been closed up. I had to get up my ladder and cut new hole with a pad saw. They returned and used the new slot just fine. Even if the old swifts have deserted the Uni nests, maybe new birds will find them next year. Keep us informed.
Thanks for your encouragement Davey. Haven't had a chance to contact the Uni today to find out if they think they can ease the fascia boards off the wall. But will find out what, if anything, they can do tomorrow.
Fingers crossed!
After a week of pondering the problem - insulation? Air flow in the roof space? We know that the problem definitely is that the gap between the barge board/facia board (not sure exactly what the term is!) is everso slightly too small. We watched one swift struggle mightily to get up the gap between the wall and the board and it just made it. There is also another nest which the pair is now accessing from the side of the building, rather than from the front, as they used to. But we also watched two other pairs make serious attempts to crawl up the gap, but they just couldn't do it.
Unfortunately,the old thin wooden board has been replaced by a much thicker plastic board. We think the old board was a bit flexible and had a bit of "give" in it, which the new board definitely doesn't.
So now we've just got to find a way for the Uni to rectify this. When it was first mooted, they said that to alter the board would involve it being removed, guttering taken down, etc, which would cost serious money.
But we are not giving up on this! There must be a way.....
You`re doing a brilliant job,Greenbird.I`m sure you`ll find a way.
A second batch of mine arrived today.There was a mix up with the hotel keys & a small group all tried to occupy the end room at the same time.Here`s a short clip from what was quite a long video. :-)
Ha - that's great! How lovely to see. I think the young uns are back here as well - definitely more flying around.
And thanks v much for your support - much appreciated. It's beginning to look like the only remedy is for the work to be re-done, which is going to be pricey. But a couple of peeps have made some suggestions about getting hold of the dosh, which is great.
And also some really GOOD news - a group of swift lovers on the staff at the Uni are arranging for 100 swift boxes to be installed on various Uni buildings!
How good is that?
Well, we're just waiting for the Uni to let us know that they're ok with the work being re-done and then, once we've got the dosh, it can be done before next year's breeding season......!
But also some good news - my local Arts Centre is more than happy to have some boxes on its building. So I've been round to meet the chap who deals with the building and we've identified what looks like a really good site - very high and north facing. The boxes will be right up under the eaves, so sheltered from the weather. There's scaffolding going up at exactly the right place in mid-July, so the boxes will go up then. And they're going to investigate whether there's space above the soffit - if there is, they're going to make some holes in that as well, so we could end up with about 6 nest sites.
And tonight there were about 12 swifts swooping and wheeling over my house at about 9.15 - lovely. No sign that they've found my swift boxes, though - but they can clearly hear the swift calls. Perhaps they all have nest sites anyway? I hope so!