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)