Swifts Campaign - last leg of the journey (for this year!)

Photo: Abby Eaton

First, the Committee's decision to go ahead, then Ed Mayer's brilliant talk in January, recording all the 'expressions of interest', visiting all the potential homes for swifts throughout the village, mapping them and previous known/believed nest sites village-wide, commissioning over 30 nest boxes, installing them and call systems - it's been quite an adventure.

Without the encouragement of Ed Mayer at Swift Conservation, and the advice and practical support of Tim Norriss of Hampshire Swifts, we'd definitely not be where we now are.

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Which is - surveying the existing population to give us a base-line from which to monitor what we hope will be its growth in the years to come.  Andrew Graham, our wildlife recording expert, emailed everyone who's expressed interest in the campaign explaining what's involved and asking for help in recording observations.  Those who can are getting together on Thursday before going out to each of the 10 areas of the village Andrew has outlined.  

​By way of celebration and to inspire us, here is the 'library' of videos that have come my way over the last few years.  Enjoy!
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• Swifts are of course supra-national - this video is in Russian, but you don't need the words.  A family found a baby Swift that had fallen down a vent into their flat, and studied the Internet to find out how to raise it.
• This is the latest https://youtu.be/5uH0ik69kvA - it's in French and mine is limited, but I did gather that he has 62 nest boxes and that the breeding pairs arrive first in mid-April (this is Switzerland, so they get there before here), next year's breeders come in mid-May, and last year's juveniles not till mid-June.
• Then there's this little clip of one getting home from the 7,000 mile commute.  ('Phew!  Made it.  What a mess the place is in ...')
• This is one is fascinating, shows how they do what they do in fligh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bI4Tjxb7cY
• And this Spanish one always cheers me up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OiKS2D9z9k.

Because this is a long term project, we'll be repeating the survey every year at around this time. 
​so if you'd like to be involved in future, please email Laura, who's managed to keep us in some kind of order as we made our way through this unknown territory.