Interesting article

Bernard Genton has been undertaking a study of Swift arrival dates in Switzerland. Arrival dates are a lot more complex than we realised. Interesting stuff.

Swift Awareness Week

27th June - 5th July 2020 has been designated Swift Awareness Week. Whilst we haven't been able to organise any events, the Glamorgan Swift Project has been using social media to spread the word about these fascinating birds. Hope you've managed to see some of our tweets and posts.

It's as if the Swifts know. There have been huge movements of Swifts down the east coast of England. Thousands of birds have been recorded passing over. Are these non-breeders? Is it the start of the southward migration?

Cardiff Bay Swift Tower

Unfortunately the call system failed just prior to the arrival of the Swifts. With the lockdown, we were unable to fix the problem but the good news is that in early June we have the call system working again. Perhaps a little late for this year but we are ever hopeful.

Summer 2020

Obviously all our events have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. We have been working behind the scenes however. Here's an article written by Ian Hartrey about a project he has been involved with in Penarth.

 The Swifts arrived back a couple of weeks earlier than normal this year, no doubt aided by the glorious spring weather in April. Reports from around the country indicate that many pairs laid earlier too. Oddly there was a second wave of arrivals in late May. Most of our activities have been severely hampered by the lockdown but work has been going on behind the scenes.

Ian Hartrey, one of our Swift Champions, has done some great work in Penarth. He has penned the following article:

A little over 2 years ago, we approached Newydd Housing regarding their plans to convert the St Paul’s Church and community building in Penarth into housing.  Swifts used to nest in the old buildings prior to demolition. We thought this could be a great opportunity to see if they could accommodate Swifts in their development.  Newydd proved to be willing partners and allowed us to correspond with their architects (CFW Architects Ltd) to offer suggestions, such as the siting of boxes. In all, 13 Swift boxes have been installed, plus 3 bat boxes.

 

 Now that the building is nearing completion, we are delighted to report that the boxes have  now been installed, as per the ecologist’s recommendations.  The building is scheduled to be completed in summer 2020.  Thanks must go to Darrel Powell at Newydd Housing and Darren Payne at CFW Architects for being open and willing to accommodate our requests.

 It just goes to show that if developers and contractors are contacted, they are often helpful and prove to be willing to  provide homes for nature.  All new developments really should have mitigation for wildlife (indeed many authorities state that there should be a net gain of biodiversity following development). Why not contact local authorities, housing associations and developers to ask them to consider accommodating biodiversity within their schemes?

   

It just goes to show that if developers and contractors are contacted, they are often helpful and prove to be willing to  provide homes for nature.  All new developments really should have mitigation for wildlife (indeed many authorities state that there should be a net gain of biodiversity following development). Why not contact local authorities, housing associations and developers to ask them to consider accommodating biodiversity within their schemes?

                                                                                                                                                                Ian Hartrey

 

The Cardiff Swift Survey

After a lot of number crunching the results of the Cardiff Swift Survey (2018 and 2019) are in. The tables below show the number of nest sites found by area in both years. They may of course refer to the same pair returning to their traditional site. We shall be repeating the  HLF funded survey again this summer (our final year). If you can contribute, it would be great. Sign up with the RSPB as a surveyor and you'll get a pack of information and training on how to go about your survey.

If you can't commit to a full survey yet know of a nest site, please log it on the RSPB Swift portal. We can only protect these sites if we know where the birds nest.

Area	2018	2019
Whitchurch	1	0
Llanishen	2	1
Trowbridge	1	0
Pontcanna	0	2 *
Bute Park	0	3
Tremorfa	0	1
Radyr	0	1
Cardiff barrage	0	4 **
Total	88	65

Area	2018	2019
Flatholm	1	0
Ely	28	29
Riverside	5	3
Canton	7	5
Grangetown	1	0
Cathays	25	11
Plasnewydd	3	0
Roath	5	0
Adamsdown	4	0
Llandaff North	5	5