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Swifts need our help
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I spoke with local birders at the Feile at Turlough last weekend. They were doubtful that swifts would nest outside urban settings. Having watched clouds of bats feeding over Melbourne Australia evenings, attracted by the swarms of insects which in turn were attracted by the street-lights along the Yarra, I wondered what you thought?
That kind of concentration of insect food combined with high-enough nesting-sites are not available in rural settings.
Those guys don't know their swifts! Swifts nest in urban settings because that's where they have learnt to find nest sites. Prior to that they were tree hole and cliff nesters. There are still cliff nesting colonies in Ireland with two in Fermanagh and one on the north coast of County Antrim
Here's a pair that nest over 5km from the nearest excellent food source Lough Neagh. 100s can be seen feeding over lakes head in to the wind.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/H+Clements/@54.7197587,-6.1691094,17132m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x4861ac1160e3ffb7:0x2338af5a7d04cd0f
Many swifts can bee seen flying cross country to get food. Every time I go over the hills in to Belfast I see feeding parties of swifts
Swifts are now the fastest European bird in level flight 111.6kmh / 69.3mph which means a wee trip to find food is nothing to them.
The travel from west Africa to the UK is a wee jolly for them. A swift did the journey in 5.5 days!!0 -
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We usually have quite a few swifts around the garden and surrounding bog/fields but not one this year so far. Went to mass in town this morning and 9 were flying over the carpark and adjoining school. I take it they are going for a city break this summer.
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swifts need our help! wrote: »flying low would indicate they are nesting in the school
Have you ever thought of putting up nest boxes on your house?
If I put up any more houses for birds, mammals or insects around my house I'm going to have to ask them for a contribution towards the property tax!
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Just to let you know, our local national school Green schools committee with the help of Swinford Tidy Towns and under the guidance Swift conservationats in GMIT Castlebar, have installed 2 swift box's. There is 1 camera in one of the nests in each box, and is connected to a TV in the classroom. We hope to have live streaming set up on the tidy towns site for next year.
The box's were installed 2 weeks ago and calling sounds are playing since. I will be setting up a page for the green schools swift project when I get some more photos. I'll update here again (following thread).
I was watching them last night (school 20M behind me) and there were about 20/24 flying around. Tried to get a few shots of them this morning but I didn't have the 300mm lens on, only the 50mm, couldn't focus on them right. Them buggers are fast!!
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Saw 2 starlings today squeezing out of one of the swift boxes I roosting tonight, and straw/twigs in some of the other boxes too, going to be a noisy couple of months
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Just to let you know, our local national school Green schools committee with the help of Swinford Tidy Towns and under the guidance Swift conservationats in GMIT Castlebar, have installed 2 swift box's. There is 1 camera in one of the nests in each box, and is connected to a TV in the classroom. We hope to have live streaming set up on the tidy towns site for next year.
The box's were installed 2 weeks ago and calling sounds are playing since. I will be setting up a page for the green schools swift project when I get some more photos. I'll update here again (following thread).
I was watching them last night (school 20M behind me) and there were about 20/24 flying around. Tried to get a few shots of them this morning but I didn't have the 300mm lens on, only the 50mm, couldn't focus on them right. Them buggers are fast!!
Hard to believe how fast time has gone! Nearly time for the Swifts to appear.
Looking for some advice guys. We need to go about setting up the live streaming form the cameras installed in each nesting box. Cables are in as far as the tv (which was temporary) There is trunking there with data point connections which go back to the (server I think) in main office. We need to link up to some service provider I'm thinking? All I know how to do is embed youtube and vimeo videos but have never done live streaming.0 -
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