Swifts on BBC One Songs of Praise
On July 17th 2015, a BBC film crew visited the Worlington Swift Festival at All Saints Church, for a piece to be included in the religious program 'Songs of Praise' on 27th September. You can read the...
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New houses for people - and for Swifts
A new social housing development by T J Evers, on behalf of Sanctuary Group, of twenty affordable houses in Northumbria Close, at the northern end of the village of Haddenham in Cambridgeshire is now...
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Owlstone Road, Newnham, Cambridge
In 2011, we installed two 4-box Swift cabinets on 2 houses in Owlstone Road, Newnham. As in many places over the years, a street with a vibrant Swift population had been reduced to virtually nothing....
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Maurice Wilkinson's nest boxes
Maurice Wilkinson has been attracting Swifts and House Martins to his house in Needingworth since 2010. He has a number of innovative ideas which are worth sharing, including the use of uPVC as a...
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Vine House Farm wildlife towers
As a result of being invited to give a talk to the South Holland Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, we had the pleasure of staying with Nicholas & Ann Watts at Vine House Farm, where, on a tour of the...
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Cherwell Swifts Conservation Project (CSCP) 2015
We are pleased to host another report, for 2015, of the Cherwell Swift Conservation Project. It is, yet again, a good example of what a local group can achieve (see 2014 report)by Chris MasonOur...
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Swifts and traditional nest sites in Anglican churches
This is an appeal for records of Swifts nesting in churches in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshireby Chris MasonSt Nicholas, Islip, one of the many Oxfordshire churcheswhich formerly had nesting...
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Circular entrance inserts
We have been quite successful in retrofitting half brick-sized entrance inserts in brick walls, either by removing a header from a solid wall (here), or cutting an entrance in a cavity wall (here). We...
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Swift nest box 1908-09 style
The February 2016 issue of British Birds magazine contains a fascinating letter by Richard Porter and Graham Madge about the value of nestboxes to bird conservation (Brit. Birds February 2016).by Dick...
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More swift boxes in Milton, Cambs
We already reported on Clarke Brunt's Swift boxes, where he had 6 breeding pairs of Swifts in 2015. Our recent successes with installing internal nest boxes in roof spaces convinced Clarke that he...
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Swift Nestboxing in Tashkent
We report regularly on the activities of our friends, Elena and Pavel, in Tashkent (Uzbekistan}, for they do so much, not only in the field of rehabilitation, but generally to raise the profile of...
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Maidenhead, Marlow and Cookham Swift Group
Another heartening example of a local initiative to provide more accommodation for Swifts.by Jan StannardThis month has seen the start of our area’s Swift box initiative, with the first boxes made...
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First deployment of Model 30 Swift boxes
Since 2008 John Stimpson has made and sold nearly 7000 Zeist Swift boxes. The Zeist design is suitable for positioning under broad eaves. In exposed positions, with its flat roof, it would allow...
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New Swift tower in Poland
We have been sent pictures of an innovative Swift Tower in Poland designed by Warsaw architect Marcin Grabarczyk, in one of Warsaw's most beautiful parks situated near the Vistula River: Kamionkowskie...
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Beijing Swifts in Chinese Media
One of the intended consequences of the Beijing Swift Project was to further raise awareness of nature in general and Swifts in particular in China.In the February 2016 edition of the Chinese outdoor...
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Another flat-topped roof installation in Tel Aviv
This is another useful case study showing how to add a large number of nestboxes to a protected building, without compromising its appearance. It is the same concept as this project. There must be many...
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Je suis un martinet est arrivé!
Front cover (click to enlarge)We are delighted that our booklet for children, 'I am a Swift - I am in trouble' by Helen Hodgson has been adapted and translated into French. This initiative was...
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The crazy flying birds of Toulon
This story was sent to us by Katherine Dubourg, volunteer and Vice President of the LPO PACA, in Toulon. It is the story of a concerned set of individuals who are doing something to reduce the...
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An idea that has not worked (yet)
In 2010, we installed 3 Swift boxes in St John's Church, Bury St Edmunds. While we all like publicising our successes, it is probably informative to publish the odd failure as well. Despite playing...
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Some implementations of the Cambridge Swift Box System
The Cambridge Swift Box System is a method of installing internal nest boxes, by replacing a whole brick or half brick with a cast insert containing an entrance hole, with a nest box inside the...
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