Swift monitors get-together

We held our final review session of the 2018 Cardiff Swift Survey last night in Café Hafren. Over 500 hours of Swift Surveying has been undertaken in the city - a fantastic effort by all involved.  In all, 21 of the 50 Swift monitors have attended our review sessions and provided a lot of very useful feedback. We'll certainly take note of the comments when designing/refining future surveys.

As a result of recent GDPR legislation, we'll have to re-advertise the role of Swift Surveyor for next spring. Keep your eyes peeled and please sign up for next year.

We were sad to say farewell to Carolyn from RSPB, who is off to pastures new, working for the Cairngorms Capercaillie Recovery Project. Best wishes, Carolyn and thanks for all the hard work you have put in to the project.

Cardiff Swift Survey

We've just received the 2018 survey maps from the RSPB. Makes interesting viewing:

 Here's a note from Carolyn Robertson of the RSPB:

 

These maps are the result of over 500 hours of time donated by Cardiffians walking the streets of our city this summer looking for and recording where our swifts are feeding and nesting.

 

 

People love where they live and the wildlife that lives there too – so much so that they’ll volunteer over 500 hours to help protect our city’s swifts

• Volunteers have said some lovely things about their role as Cardiff Swift Surveyors; “I’m proud to have been a swift monitor helping to contribute to the future welfare of these magnificent fliers.” “Brought back great memories of childhood, listening to the screaming and low swooping of swift when out playing in the street during the 1970's”
• Swift numbers have fallen dramatically. If the trend continues we stand to lose swifts as a breeding bird in the UK within the next 20 years. Now we know where they’re breeding in Cardiff we can take a much more informed approach to protecting them.
• Swifts migrate each year from Africa, spending their summer in our city breeding and raising their young. Once the young fledge and leave Cardiff behind they won’t land again for up to 4 years (when they’re ready to breed); a world record for sustained flight in nature.

Llanblethian

Llanblethian resident, David Webb has installed some Swift bricks in his chimney. He's hoping to add a call system next spring. They're not easy to see but you can just make out the entrance holes near the top of the chimney. Well done, David.

More on All Saints

Howard and I installed the boxes in All Saints yesterday. It's a 10 box system, installed in the bell tower. They are facing east towards Bethel Church which has had nesting Swifts in the past.

All Saints, Barry

Howard Driver has built more boxes for our "Swifts in churches" project. We're hoping to get them installed in the autumn. It is a 10 box system. To date our church boxes haven't attracted nesting Swifts but we're ever hopeful.

Swifts in Llanharan

A couple of weeks ago Tony Swann sent us these photos of Swifts entering/leaving nest sites in his street in Llanharan.

Article in the Guardian

It's Swift Awareness Week and a number of articles have appeared in the press. Here's one such from the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/18/swifts-tragic-decline-birds

Talk to NHS Retired Staff

I gave a talk to the NHS Retirement Fellowship in Llanishen today. There were around 60 attendees. Several of the audience showed great interest in the topic and I think we could recruit some new Swift Champions from their midst. Pity I couldn't show them pictures of the Cardiff Bay Tower - next time maybe.

P.S. The tower has been delivered to Centregreat in Cardiff. We'll need to wait for the end of the Volvo Round the World Yacht event to finish before we can start erecting it.

Swift surveying

I've done a couple of surveys recently.

• The first in St Fagans (part of the Cardiff-wide survey) at the end of May, saw 3 - 5 Swifts flying high over the village. A pair were observed mating.
• The second survey was in central Pontypridd on 4th June. A lovely evening with 22 - 25 Swifts flying low and screaming. I only managed to find one nesting pair.

Barry Swifts

It was great to meet Jane and Angela at All Saints Church in Barry today. Howard has measured up in readiness for yet another nest box scheme. Whilst we were there a group of about 5 Swifts were wheeling overhead. Looks a promising site.

Leaflets ready

The Cardiff Swift City leaflets have been printed. We'll be distributing some at the Swift volunteer event next week. 40 volunteers have come forward to help monitor Swifts in Cardiff this summer.

And they're back

Had my first Swift sightings of the year on Sunday 22nd April over Kenfig Pool. This is one of my earliest ever sightings. They were seen over Cardiff Bay as well.

RSPB Swift Survey

Ian Hartrey has been working hard entering all the known Swift nesting records in Cardiff on to the RSPB Swift Survey web page, in readiness for this summer's survey.

If you are not already doing so, please add your records (not just Cardiff) to this page. It'll mean that we have all our records accessible. I've also now added the URL to our Swift leaflet.

https://swiftsurvey.org/Rspb/Home/Index

Cadoxton Ponds Swift Tower

The new Swift Tower at Dow Corning's Cadoxton Ponds reserve (managed for them by Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales) was installed earlier today by Phelim Phillips and Patrick McKeown of Stoneyford Engineering, Lisburn, Northern Ireland.

Swift poster

Here's a copy of the poster for Llanblethian. It has been created in MS Word, so can be altered easily.

Llanblethian

I visited St John's, Llanblethian yesterday. Went up the church tower which would be ideal for a swift project, however all the openings had been glazed. Whilst there, I was able to visit a couple of adjacent properties, which would be ideal for a box scheme. Indeed swifts used to nest in one of them. The owner is having the barge boards painted soon so we hope to get boxes erected then.

I have sent our swift leaflet to David Webb and he's gong to post a couple around the village.

If you could post any leaflets. please get in touch.

St Peter's RC Primary School, Cardiff

Some time ago, I spoke with Cardiff swift enthusiast, Clive Roberts.  Clive has a great understanding of the swift community within Splott, Cardiff and knows all to well about the damage that can be inflicted when refurbishment work takes place without those concerned being aware of the presence of swifts. 

Through Clive's local knowledge, we recently made contact with Willis Construction who were employed on a new development with Cadwyn Housing Association.  Although we weren't able to get any swift bricks into this particular development, Willis were interested in helping us and set up a meeting with the adjacent St Peter's RC Primary School.  This ultimately led to 7 swift boxes being put up on the school building on March 15th as can be seen below.  Thanks in particular to Sean Twamley at Willis Construction, Lyndon Watkins (Headmaster of St Peter's RC Primary School), Kath Williams at Cadwyn Housing and of course Clive for getting in touch and starting the ball rolling.

Seven swift boxes now in place kindly donated by Willis Construction

Sean Twamley (Willis Construction), Kath Williams (Cadwyn) and Lyndon Watkins (Head of St Peter's) 

Various

I visited All Saints in Barry today with a view to setting up some boxes inside the bell tower.

 

Also thanks to Jean Haslam's friend, Brian, the two faulty call systems have been mended.

Register of swift boxes in church towers

The Local Swift Network has recently set up a register of those churches that have boxes inside their towers. I've just registered our two existing schemes.

More on Trinity, Penarth

I had a nice email from Annie Irving this morning. Annie is the Penarth resident that alerted us to the presence of swifts around Trinity Church. She writes a regular blog. You might like to see her account of putting the boxes up in the church tower

https://earthstar.blog/2018/03/05/glamorgan-swift-champions/

Recent developments

A meeting was held on 22nd Feb with the RSPB and CHA to discuss the new swift tower for the Cardiff Bay barrage. Things are progressing well. The tower has been ordered, interpretation boards are in preparation and the volunteer packs are almost complete.

We erected the boxes (rather Howard erected the boxes, whilst we spectated) in Trinity tower in Penarth. Four boxes have been installed. Sadly we couldn't fit the call system at this time as the base unit was faulty. We hope to install this later in the spring.

Another potential site

I visited St John's church in Llanblethian to investigate the possibility of siting some nest boxes in the tower. It's a lovely church with plenty of history. Our contact will be discussing this with the Church council in early February.

HLF bid successful

Great news. We've been successful in obtaining an HLF grant towards the purchase of a swift tower on Cardiff Barrage. It's been a long haul but we're all systems go. An artist's impression of the 90 box structure is below.

Howard has worked his magic again

Howard Driver has constructed the boxes for Trinity Church, Penarth. We hope to get them installed in the near future. A call system has been purchased. We'll need to measure up for cabling etc.