A New colony box in Magrath Avenue

We first installed a 4-box cabinet, made by Bob Tonks on Helen Hodgson's house in Magrath Avenue, Cambridge in 2010. Helen already had one pair of Swifts nesting on top of the wall under her eaves, but despite playing attraction calls every year, by 2016, still no Swifts have occupied her boxes.

Click to enlarge

Few places are as stubborn as this. More recently we installed 3 Zeist-style boxes further along the eaves, but although attraction calls generate interest from the Swifts, they are as yet to become established in any of the boxes.

In 2010 there was a small tree in front of the house, which has now become a substantial tree. Trees in front of boxes tend to slow things down. Although the tree has been trimmed somewhat over the winter, one can imagine that it is still a disincentive for the swifts.

So, as a last resort, we have installed a 4-box cabinet facing out over Magdalene College. It faces the same direction as the eaves which contains the existing pair of Swifts.

The space between the drainage pipe and the end of the wall is 29cm, so enough to get a floor area of about 26cm x 20cm for each chamber. The headroom in each chamber is 15cm

The front of the box faces south east, so it is painted white to reflect the sun. The box is made of 12mm weatherproof plywood, and the roof is covered in 9mm PVC.

Grooves were cut below the entrances to provide some grip. This might assist the Swifts in gaining their first entry.

The picture left shows how it was constructed. There is a tweeter in the 2nd chamber up.

The cabinet is secured to the wall with anchor bolts which screw directly into the brickwork, without a rawlplug.

Swift boxes on a thatched cottage gable

There are no new ideas here, but it demonstrates that, with a little thought, Swift boxes can fit in well with the appearance of a pretty village cottage.

[UPDATE August 2016 - one pair seems to be established in the bottom right box]

Great Wilbraham is an attractive village just 2 miles from Fulbourn, the home of one of the largest and most successful Swift nest boxing projects in the UK. Great Wilbraham itself also has a healthy population of Swifts.

The design, with 5 nest chambers, is another version of these designs (Elsworth, Reach)

Pictures:

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Another flat-topped roof installation in Tel Aviv

This is another useful case study showing how to add a large number of nestboxes to a protected building, without compromising its appearance. It is the same concept as this project. There must be many flat-topped buildings where this idea could be implemented. It is unobtrusive and access is straight forward should any maintenance be needed. Swifts can be slow to occupy the middle boxes in a row of regularly space boxes, but in this case, the aesthetics required a symmetric arrangement. The Swifts will figure it out eventually.

Amnonn Hahn writes:

The project objective was to build a large Swift Colony. At 15 meters long, it contains 36 nesting chambers. It was installed on the first building in the area long before the City of Tel Aviv was founded. It was built in 1856 by UK Jews who bought an area of 20 acres to serve as the 1st Agricultural Study Centre. It was called "The Farm House".

The Ottoman Empire used it as a "Watch Station" to control the passage between the port of Jaffa and Nablus. The British Army had stationed one of its units there after WW1. The area was sold to the founder of the Israeli Electrical Company (IEC) Mr. David Rothenberg who built the 1st Electrical Power Station in that era. IEC became one of Israel’s largest & strongest companies. In 1968 IEC decided to move the centre of its Board of Directors into this building and it became the first conserved building of Tel Aviv.

The area is right in the centre of Tel Aviv with houses over 100 years old being conserved under the supervision of the City Conservation Dept.

The project was implemented in cooperation with the City Conservation Dept who supported the idea of installing the "Swift Colony" on this "Farm House". They officially approved the Swift Colony design.

The project was also achieved in cooperation with IEC, The Society for Protection of Nature in Israel and The Hoopoe Foundation.

"And the rest is history".

36 boxes neatly installed

36 boxes ready for installation

Before installing the 'sunroof'

Detail of the 'sunroof'

A tweeter built in to one of the nest boxes.

The detail, left, is a 'starling baffle', designed to deter the invasive Vinous-breasted Starling

Everything is ready for the opening ceremony.

#temperature

Another gable in the sun

My daughter and son-in-law decided they would like a Swift box on their Elsworth, Cambs house. The only viable place was at the top of a west-southwest facing gable end.

[Postscript: On July 1st 2015, the "hottest July day ever", the temperature reached 32.8°C in the box - well within safe limits]
[Postscript 2: on July 23rd 2015, A Swift enters the top box. There have been up to 7 'bangers' pulled in by the attraction calls]
[Postscript 3: June 11th 2016, the birds are back in the top box]

by Dick

The design is a very similar idea to this box, which did not have a potential over-heating problem. This configuration contains just 3 nest chambers. West-southwest is not as bad as south, but the afternoon sun could well be a problem.

4 things should keep the temperature within reasonable limits:

•  The front is 24mm thick - 2 layers of 12mm plywood.
•  The shaped battens cover about half of the front and provide shade from sun directly into the entrances.
•  It is painted white.

•  Air can ventilate into the space between the box sides and the eaves.

A wireless max-min thermometer has been placed in the top box to monitor the maximum temperature each day.

The battens keep the entrances in the shade. The tweeter is attached to the bottom of the box with Velcro.
[Postscript: the swifts pulled the tweeter off, so it has been moved inside one of the boxes]

The detailed construction is illustrated in the pictures below:

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Gable end Swift cabinet

Gable ends are often a good opportunity for Swift boxes because of their height. This gable end, in Reach, Cambs., faces north-west and is high, so very suitable.

[Update September 2017: 7 of the 9 boxes were occupied this year]

[Postscript July 2015: the pair nesting in the apex of the brickwork returned to use the new apex entrance. Another pair occupied the left box on the 2nd row and House Sparrows occupied 2 boxes on the right of the bottom row]



by Dick

Photo Dafila Scott

As the eaves were quite narrow (~150mm),the only option was a flat fronted box with holes in it. So, in order to make it a little more interesting we added battens above the entrances.

These were fashioned by slicing a '4 by 2' at 45°. The battens had the added advantage of providing some level of shade and defending the entrances from the rain.

The wood stain used is Rosewood.

The cabinet contains 9 nesting places, the top most entrance, in the apex, is in front of an entrance in the brickwork which has previously been used by Swifts.

The box is secured by screws through the side walls into the wooden soffits. The final erection required scaffolding supporting a ladder.

Photo Dafila Scott

The images below show how it was constructed:

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Gable end nestbox in Norway

We like to see examples of well made, nice looking nest boxes, and here is an example designed and built by Johnny Reitan from Molde, which is quite far north on the coast of Norway.

The finished cabinet - click to enlarge.

The box comprises 4 nest-chambers, and is made to match the cladding of the house exactly. The top entrance is protected by a flute, and the bottom 3 entrances are adjacent to the wall of the house - a position where Swifts commonly seek a new nest site. A speaker for attraction calls is mounted inside each chamber.  The metal ventilation grill in the middle allows air to flow into the original ventilation grill in the house.

As the eaves were so narrow, the box extends beyond them, but with adequate roof insulation, this will not be a problem.

For Swift boxes to be accepted by owners and architects, it is important that they fit in well with the building - this has been well achieved here.  Thank you Johnny for letting us use it.

The pictures below tell their own story of how it was conceived and assembled, and Johnny has more pictures here and here:

Internal structure, with nest platforms

Components for front assembly

The assembled cabinet. The front is removed for installation

A view from below

A view from inside the box showing the position of 4 tweeter speakers

Close up of the installed cabinet

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Michael Osborne's Swift Hotel

UPDATE August 2013: Michael succeeded in attracting Swifts into 3 of his boxes, of which one pair settled in the top box on the right. Michael had used black paint below the entrances on all 3 boxes that the Swifts entered

It is good to see some considerable effort put into the architectural form of a structure built for Swifts. Our Victorian ancestors got the hang of it with their elegant dovecotes. More recently, the Americans have a whole industry using creative designs for Purple Martin houses. It is desirable that accommodation for Swifts not only suits the birds, but also that it enhances the architectural forms in our environment. Of course, Swift accommodation may be more challenging, as it needs to be erected at least 5 metres high, but Michael Osborne has shown here what can be achieved on the gable end of a modest house.

Here is a picture, left, of Michael's complete 'hotel', which is installed on his girlfriend Amy's house. And my, what an improvement to an otherwise bland gable end.

This birdhouse contains 8 nest chambers for Swifts, it is constructed out of marine ply, and all cut ends are sealed so they are permanently waterproof.

The internal structure is quite complicated, so the following Google Sketchup drawings are intended to illustrate how it goes together.

Sketchup model of complete box

There are 2 sets of 4 boxes each, 4 with their entrances under the louvres on the front and 4 with their entrances on the right. There are no entrances on the left. 

For illustrative purposes, we have chosen a sun angle that highlights the relief of the box, in practice it is installed facing away from the sun.

Front assembly removed

In this picture on the left, the entrances to the 4 boxes on the right can be seen in the 4 floors.

The space under the roof, behind the decorative grill can be used to house speakers to play attraction calls.


Most cuts in this design are at 15°, so relatively easy to make with a jigsaw.

View from inside of front assembly

The front assembly shows the 4 entrances to the boxes on the left side of the box (when viewed from the front).

Should anyone wish to create something similar, then MIchael is happy to supply the Google Sketchup model so you can read off the dimensions.

For many more pictures of this 'hotel' under construction, see SMSWW (requires login).

Gable End Boxes

6 boxes within one triangular cabinet
click for larger picture

We were sent this picture by Nick Stokes of Norfolk. The width of the eaves constrained the boxes within 140mm, the same width as a number of successful commercial nest-boxes.

A design tailored to fit a given situation can enhance the appearance of a property rather than detracting from it. These boxes are placed at the north end of the house, the south end could well lead to overheating.

Note the neat positioning of a speaker above the apex of the boxes.

See another idea for a gable end here

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School Project in Israel

We asked Amnonn Hahn if he could tell us about one of his projects at the Gavrieli Harkamel School in Tel Aviv:

This is an example of spotting an opportunity in an otherwise unlikely location for Swift nest-boxes.

It also shows what can be done in a hot climate, where defending the nest-boxes from the sun can be a real challenge.

Nicely Designed Swift Cabinet

These pictures were sent to us by Darren Frost. They demonstrate how nice a Swift Cabinet can look on a semi-detached house.

The boxes are made of 12mm marine ply and there are nest concaves in all compartments. There is a gap between the box and the wall for bats.

Darren has already got Swifts interested in these boxes, so, if he keeps going with his CD, he has every chance of new occupants this year.

It is important that Swift boxes do not spoil the appearance of a nice house, and painting the boxes to match goes a long way to achieve this.