A wildlife success

Following the Trust’s partnership with Lockers Park School in 2019 to produce swift boxes using wood generously supplied by Selco Builders Warehouse, we have received this lovely video from Steve Gilden showing swifts swooping around one of the boxes located on a house near to the school, attempting to entice their young out of the box. Steve now regularly has swifts breeding at his house and was instrumental in getting this scheme underway.
Steve would like to remind you of their plight:-
“Swifts arrive in early May and usually depart in late July. They spend virtually all of their lives flying and travel a huge distances migrating between Africa and the UK. They are in trouble, with their numbers declining rapidly, especially in our town. This is mainly due to losing their nesting sites as we upgrade and refurbish our homes. We CAN do something about it - we can put up external nesting boxes or, even better, special swift nesting bricks in new developments. Some of the new boxes, placed near existing swift nests, have now had nesting swifts for two years. Hopefully more boxes will be put up in the future. You do have to be patient - as it can sometimes take several years for them to use a box but if we don’t create new homes for them their numbers will decline even further. For me summer would not be summer without the sound of swifts screaming overhead.”
There are very few swift colonies left in the local area. If you are lucky enough to live near one you could help extend this project by building a swift box and putting it under your north-east or north-western facing eaves. See the Bristol Swifts website: www.bristolswifts.co.uk/swift-nest-box-design/