Act Swiftly.
Hey,
We have begun yet another Sunday….albeit a gray one.
I warmed two croissants that I bought yesterday and we had a very pleasant breakfast together.
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While I was tearing delicious morsels off mine, I read the Home supplement of The Times and saw a report about Swifts being added to the Amber List, which is part of a register of birds which are of conservation concern and is drawn up by The Royal Society For The Protection Of Birds.
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Swifts are some of the last arrivals here to celebrate the coming of the summertime.
They make an epic journey from southern and central Africa in order to breed, but are finding that so much harder nowadays.
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Over the past ten years there has been a dramatic fall in the numbers of Swifts, possibly caused by the fact that everyone is converting lofts and using energy saving methods such as home insulation.
Although this energy conservation is a fine idea it has reduced the amount of access these lovely birds have to the eaves of roofs where they lay their eggs.
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It is hard to imagine not seeing them, with their distinctive sleek shape and forked tail, darting about in raucous flocks above the houses.
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All is not lost though.
You can help preserve them by logging on to swift-conservation.com.
This site sells specialist nest boxes for between £12 and £30.
Cunningly enough you can also purchase a CD of their shrieking calls, in order to help lure passing Swifts to nest there.
This method allows you to conserve energy without killing off this species.
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The RSPB have also requested the assistance of people who are prepared to join a survey to find out the locations of the Swift flocks, their nests and their numbers.
If you are able to help with this important work, then you can download a form from rspb.org.uk/things to do/surveys/swifts/index.asp.
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If you are looking to discover more about these beautiful birds then the gentleman writing in The Times….Tony Jupiter, an environmental campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth, at greenhouse@sunday-times.co.uk….recommends you try reading the book Swifts In A Tower by David and Elizabeth Lack.
This fascinating book details their study of a colony in the tower of the Oxford University Museum Of Natural History.
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There you go, if you want to have fun and also help with the conservation of the species!
At least I don’t have to worry about my unfriendly Crows going without.
This morning they thoroughly enjoyed the two leftover croissants that we could not eat, furiously gobbling the bits down, before quickly wiping their beaks on the tree branches, and starting again.
Have a grand day.
We have to do all we can to counteract the slaughter of our birds by those foreigners!!!
Move Swiftly!
J,x.
Oh no, this is getting too depressing.
Here is a Sunday Times article today, where David Attenborough says that a…..
‘Wildlife Disaster Heralds A Silent Summer’.
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And a bit more of the same with the emphasis on the hedgehogs….
Rise Up And Save The Hedgehog.
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PS. Did you know that Googling damages the environment!
