Swift Conservation Project

Wonderful news to report today. Fingal County Council just recently funded a swift conservation project for Castleknock Tidy Towns.

A colony of swifts was discovered last year during our Biodiversity Place Mapping project in St Brigid's National School. Now all of the local village schools will be getting new nesting boxes and 'swift call' equipment. This will encourage the colony size to grow and thrive over time. Swifts are amazing migratory birds that can spend 10 months on the wing at a time. Lovely to think some of them have chosen Castleknock as their home.

Thanks FCC!

Swifts come to Ireland every year for just four months, arriving in late April and leaving in late August. Swifts are faithful to their nest sites and once they choose a nest, they return to it each year for the rest of their lives.

The swift call box emits a call or sound like nesting swifts. This attracts other younger breeding pairs to choose and use the new nests within the boxes.

These Genesis nesting boxes which we chose are triple boxes as the breeding pairs of birds like to nest close to each other. Exciting, isn't it?

We will report on progress as it happens!