St Illtud's Church, Llantwit Major

Productive site meeting in Llantwit Major this morning. Howard Driver measured the space where we'd like to install boxes inside the church tower. The plan is to try four boxes in a stack arrangement (with calling system ) to start with, with a view to adding more if it is successful.
Many thanks to the vicar and bell ringers from the church for allowing us access.

A view of the church from the entrance. We plan to install the boxes behind the louvres on the opposite side of the tower (east facing).

Call system for Merthyr tower

Good news. Merthyr Council have purchased a call system for use with the Swift tower in Parc Taf Bargoed. Let's hope it is successful.

Upcoming meetings

We've got several meetings in the next couple of weeks to discuss all things Swift.

1. I've been down to Penarth to look at the potential nest box sites that Ian Hartrey has lined up.
2. A site visit to the church in Llantwit Major has been arranged. Thanks to Gareth Roberts for arranging access.The plan is to measure up the space for nest box erection inside the tower.
3. I'm giving a short presentation on Swifts at the SEWBReC forum on Saturday 21st Jan. in Cardiff.
4. We're meeting with a rep from Cardiff Council to discuss Swift towers on 25th Jan. Thanks to RSPB Cymru for setting this up.

Penarth

Ian Hartrey has been busy contacting builders in Penarth with a view to erecting more Swift boxes. To date the responses have been generally positive. One potential site is right opposite where Ian lives.

Dick Newell article

Dick Newell recently contributed an article on Swifts to Mark Avery's blog. Well worth a look.
http://markavery.info/blog/

Swift boxes in Penarth

 Dave & Margaret Knight from Penarth, contacted us in November. As they had scaffolding up, they wondered whether we could supply Swift boxes. Unfortunately the wall that the boxes were to go on is south-facing. (Although Dick Newell, at the recent SLN meeting, indicated that south-facing is OK, as long as the boxes are thick walled and painted white). I delivered a couple of boxes to them and they are now up. This is an area where Swifts occur, so fingers crossed.

Swift Local Network meeting - Bristol 19/11/2016

Julia Barrell, Linda Newton and myself attended the SLN meeting in Bristol Zoo. It was good to meet fellow Swift enthusiasts from right across the country. Several lectures were given on topics ranging from planning issues to nest box design, Swift cities and the use of social media to get the word out. We gathered lots of ideas that we hope to incorporate into our own project.