Swinford Save Our Swifts Project
Swift Nest Box’s Installed
On Friday June 20th , Lynda, Chris, James, Michael Maye PRO for Swinford Tidy Towns, Fr Dermot, Chairman of Swinford National School Board of Management and myself, Marian Thornburgh, Green School Coordinator, watched as the nest boxes were erected. Chris showed us the inside of the nest boxes. They are tiny. Also we were amazed at the tiny size of the cameras in two of the nest boxes.
Swinford National School Visit GMIT
“We visited the GMIT in Castlebar to learn about the “Swifts”. Lynda Huxley is the swifts’ expert in Castlebar. She and her husband Chris came to Swinford to conduct a survey with us to see if there are any swifts in Swinford and we found that we have lots of swifts but not a lot of suitable places available for the swifts to nest in. Chris and Lynda had a look at our building and said that the Junior side would be very suitable for nest boxes. We were thrilled with this prospect and the fact that we could do something to help keep them in our area and provide nesting areas for them. We wrote to Fr Dermot and our Board of Management to ask if we could erect two units (6 nest boxes). We had held “Cash for Clobber “ collection in April and we knew that we could use this money for the boxes. We also wrote to our Swinford Tidy Towns for sponsorship and they generously gave us €300 which we used to put cameras in two of the boxes and the cabling/wiring and connection to the internet will also need to be done.”
On Friday June 20th , Lynda, Chris, James, Michael Maye PRO for Swinford Tidy Towns, Fr Dermot, Chairman of Swinford National School Board of Management and myself, Marian Thornburgh, Green School Coordinator, watched as the nest boxes were erected. Chris showed us the inside of the nest boxes. They are tiny. Also we were amazed at the tiny size of the cameras in two of the nest boxes.
Chris set up an amplifier with the sounds of swifts which is being played constantly at the moment (at time of writing). It was amazing – no sooner had Chris and James the boxes and sounds in place than the swifts began to hover close to our nest boxes. We are hoping that some of them will choose our nest boxes for their nests for next summer. Watch this space!!!!!!!!! (When the Swifts come back again to lay their eggs, we will have the cameras streaming live here on the website).
2017 Updates
All the latest news and updates from our Swifts here in Swinford.
We had a Swift survey in Swinford on Thursday 20th July to record the number of new and existing Swift nest sites and the Swift population in Swinford, which increased since 2016. Many groups attended on the evening and Lynda & Chris Huxley from Swift Conservation Ireland had a rescued Swift which had grounded in Westport previously. Here's some close up video of that Swift, which was released successfully a few days later. For more information visit http://swiftconservation.ie/
2016 Updates
All the latest news and updates from our Swifts here in Swinford.
- WEEE Free Electrical Collection In Swinford 2024 - March 25, 2024
- Annual Swinford Spring Clean 2024 - March 21, 2024
- Mayo Litter Management Plan Survey - March 20, 2024
