Forest Hill SE23 & Lewisham Borough Swift Group

Swifts are nesting in our neighbourhood and need our help!

Last year I set up Forest Hill & Lewisham Borough Swift Group to try and help our local swifts and raise general awareness about them. Swifts are amazing birds that come to the UK from Africa every summer to nest. They sleep and eat on the wing and almost never stop flying, only ever landing to nest when they get to us!

We used to get loads of swifts in SE23 but their numbers have really declined, as they have across the UK. This is mainly due to loss of nest sites through roof repairs, building renovations and demolition of old buildings. Swifts have been sharing our buildings with us ever since the Roman times due to loss of ancient forest.
There have been active swift colonies in SE23 ever since I can remember but their numbers are falling every year, down by 40-50%! Our aim is to provide new sites in SE23 and across the Lewisham Borough and help protect old ones. We know of a precious swift colony in Wynell Road which has been there for at least over 30 years and they are really struggling due to all the repairs in the area. This is one of our priority areas. This is our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1700377583561148/ where you can find out more. Please join and let us know if you see any swifts or want to put up nest boxes on your house or public building.

On a very positive note Lewisham Homes have agreed to let us put up swift boxes on any of their suitable buildings and Breyer Group will be installing them. This is great to hopefully help boost the numbers of this beautiful bird in our locality and protect our communities biodiversity. I’ve set up a crowdfunding page to help raise money to fund the boxes. If anyone could donate or help spread the message to make it a success, this the link to the crowdfunding page

As well as people and businesses / churches / libraries / schools willing to put boxes up in SE23 on their buildings, we are also looking for local friendly builders who could give us advice on installing nest boxes on high buildings.

Many thanks!

If I wanted to put up swift houses at my property how would I do that?

I was just going to ask the same question!

I love seeing and hearing them in summer.

edit - only £40 to go, you may able to cover to whole of SE23 at this rate! Well done.

Hi starmen and oakr,

Great you both want to help swifts by putting up some boxes
I am currently putting an information sheet together with information about installing boxes and will post on here when its done.
Also hoping to get a talk organised by UK swift expert and founder of Swift Conservation UK this year in Forest Hill for residents and council / building planners. I was hoping for it to happen this Summer but looks like Autumn now.

Rebecca

Good stuff @Rebecca_Headd!

After today’s donations, just £40 to go:

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Hi Rebecca, please keep FH Library informed of any talks/updates etc going on in the area www.fhlibrary.co.uk & also FH Society will probably want to know about this too if possible so I’m adding @Michael here to make him aware

Hi Pauline,
I certainly will, thanks for getting in touch.
I’ve heard there is a small swift colony seen regularly flying over Forest Hill library? If so, the library might be a great site for swift boxes in the future!

Chris Beach, many thanks for your kind support and generous donation!

Thank you all for your kind donations. If you haven’t yet joined our group, please do!

No worries. Two more donations today (from @Starman and @JHop) - just £15 to go!

Well done, @Rebecca_Headd

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We’ve reached our target!!! A big thank you to all who donated and shared the page! We can now afford to buy 25 swift boxes and 25 nest forms to go inside. Nest forms make the boxes more inviting. Plans are underway and we are working with Lewisham Homes, the Breyer Group and Swift Conservation to ensure the boxes are put in the best places. We also need to purchase equipment to set up swift calling systems which are vital to attracting swifts to the new sites, so will continue to accept donations for 20 days.

It’s so great so many people care about swifts and get the same joy from them as I do. I am really pleased and this fills me with optimism we can do something to help them. I am thinking of organising a swift meet up soon and hope to get our group constituted so we can apply for funding for larger projects across SE23 and the borough! Anyone who loves swifts and nature and wants to enhance our local biodiversity can join!!!

I think there might be & I think that’s a great idea

Sitting in the garden Last night we saw a few swifts overhead. Lovely to see.

They are so active just now, I love seeing and hearing them. I will get the info about boxes etc up soon. Four boxes will hopefully be going up in SE23 by the end of this week. Fingers crossed!

Four swift boxes going up today in SE23

Whereabouts? I live on Wynell road. But I rent, but could talk to owners of top flats.

Agreed. Was at the Honor Oak Rec this afternoon and there were loads to be seen and heard.

Hi All
Just heard about your group although I live in Bedfordshire. Was born & Bred in Anerley near the Crystal Palace park.
I have very recently put up 2 swift boxes to the design of the Swift conservation Group. Swifts arrived may 7th and I have been playing the swift call audio from the conservation group from 5.30 am to 11.0 am and again from 4.30 to 9pm. During the last 3 days (25 to 27th Swifts have changed their flight paths to fly over and around my house and they have begun to inspect the boxes for a few seconds by clinging on. I’m very optimistic of takers next year if not this time. I doubt that they would have found my boxes without the audio because in the past they have been flyinf in a nearby street. The recommended mini Cheng amplifier costs about £12 and I found a supplier DX Deal Extreme. www.dx.com who supplied mine in about 10 days as opposed to another in Hong Kong quoting 1 to 2 months.
This morning I was thrilled to catch on video a Swift entering one of my boxes and having watched 15 mis so far hasnt emerged. I’m certain that I wouldnt have attracted them to find my new boxes so quickly without the audio.
I’m inspired by your group to try and set one up in my area where there are lots of swifts but also a lot of older properties being renovated especially around guttering and eves areas.
Good Luck to all!

Hi Anne,
They nest in various houses on the side opposite Shifford path. I have confirmed at least 4 nest sites but there could be more. It would be great if you could talk to the owners of the top flat. I am going to create a leaflet asking if people living on that side of Wynell Road would consider letting us install boxes on their buildings and will post through letter boxes sometime over the next few weeks. I know of a couple of owners of top floor flats who are already interested. Lewisham Homes also own a property on the street and I am in discussion with them at the moment about possibly siting boxes on their building too. I live at number 11.

Hi Brett,
Whereabouts in Honor Oak? Were they up high of flying at building height? I can add all of this to our swift inventory. Also if anyone else sees swifts please let us know where exactly (i.e street name) and if they were high up of flying near roofs. If anyone sees any swifts entering holes in buildings / roofs please also let us know. Thanks.

Robin, what great news about your boxes! You must be pleased Did you make them yourself? It is great if you can play swift calls to attract them to your boxes and is much easier when boxes are being put up on individual houses or flats. Without the calls it can take longer, but if swifts are in your area they should find them eventually. A lot of people have found that house sparrows may use the boxes to nest in first (their young should have fledged by the time the swifts arrive) and they show or lead the swifts to them so they use them. I’m not quite sure how this happens but many have reported this.
Definitely set a group up in your area! If you need any help or advice let me know. There are some great sources of information. Let me know how it goes.

Hi Rebecca
I was so pleased to know about your group and of the efforts being made by so many people now to help conserve the swifr populations.

Thanks for your reply and offer of advice re a swift group in my area. I may well need some advice.
The 2 boxes I have were made by John Stimpson via Swift Conservation Trust info. I have another ordered but I have room for 3 more so I will make the next ones to the same design and keep the costs down…
Really interesting to know about the Sparrow accomodation guides!
I have the saucer shape formers in my boxes but tell me, do swifts collect nesting material or do they just lay eggs on the former?
Kind regards
Robin

This was in the Recreation Ground. Over Camberwell New Cemetery, the Rec itself, and by the tracks. All at the station end. Just above tree top height and not near any buildings. Probably saw half a dozen roughly. A couple were chasing each other so probably courting! HTH

Loving what you are doing Rebecca. They are extraordinary animals. Used to see many more this time of year, was concerned that hadn’t seen any till now but at least we know that they are around still.

saw quite a few flying high over Perry Rise yesterday evening.

Ok, so not swift related, but does anyone know what these are? I’ve started seeing large numbers of them feeding off the living roof. They’re noisy and hang around for about 20 mins then leave. Hadn’t seen them until this summer.

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They might be starlings but I can’t see them very clearly.

Thanks Brett, really helpful. Hopefully they will keep being with us if we can help them. I’d hate to loose them from SE23.

Hi Robin,

Swifts do generally collect nesting material, usually things they find in flight like floating feathers. I saw one fly over my house a few days ago with a feather in its beak. Though I have heard of swifts also just laying their eggs without any nesting material. Robin can you tell me what tweeters you used for your call set up? Also how did you install your boxes I.e ladder or scaffold? Yes the John Stimpson boxes are good and I hear easy to make if you are DIY inclined - I wish I was!
Kind regards
Rebecca

I have finally got all the guidance for setting up swift boxes on your house together! Can I upload documents on here?

Yup, PDFs, DOCs and DOCXs are fine.

PDFs are best as they’re readable on any platform without paid-for software. You can turn pretty much any document into a PDF.

You can upload a document to the forum in the same way as uploading a photo.

Setting up Homes for Swifts pdf.pdf (480.8 KB)
Swift boxes availble to buy pdf.pdf (541.3 KB)

So this is very cool. A swift nesting tower near Exeter.

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Congrats on this, @Rebecca_Headd

I would love one in Forest Hill but they cost thousands. Unless we made our own!!

Good to get swifts and the group in the news. This has come at a good time. The most recent BTO report showed that swifts declined by a further 7% last year alone and they are heading towards “red” status which means they are at global risk of extinction!

It has been calculated that 20,000 new nest sites are needed every year just to keep the population at its current number. Sounds like loads but if 40 local authorities across the UK committed to putting 500 swift bricks in their new builds every year it could be done!

Seems partnerships with developers and home builders like Lewisham Homes is the way forward. Looks good on their sustainability CVs.

Lots of swifts around Brockley Rise at the moment. Did anyone manage to get some nest boxes up.

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We got 10 up in Wynell Road SE23 with the fire brigades help recently

…and people are putting them up on their houses. Also getting lots of reports of people saying they have swifts nesting in their lofts and have done so for years.

Brilliant- Well done Rebecca really good to hear.

Is this your photo by the way?

Hi Rebecca - yes - though 98% of my attempts involve just blue sky!

As an aside we are missing your photos- are you still taking some of your local birds?

So many swifts around tonight. Was sat in the garden just watching them for an hour or so - always amazing to see these birds.

I’ve seen posts on the Swift FB Group that swifts have been spotted over Kilmorie - I saw one bird warlier today but no idea whether it’s a swift, swallow or house martin etc - either way looks like the sky will soon be full again with the sight (and sound) of swifts.

There are lots on Honor Oak today hopefully to stay locally post their migration - look up - you will probably hear them as well! Might be louder than norm with the lack of flights etc, especially around dusk.

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I never see any.

Too swift!

I know, hat, coat!

You can normally hear them first - I find towards the end of the day, when I guess lots of things are flying in the air, is a good time to see them - they have a very distinctive sound so once you recognise it you will know they are around. They fly quite low sometimes.

If you take a walk towards Blythe Hill and walk down Brockley Rise and then up Lowther or Duncombe Hill you’d have a pretty good chance of seeing them - maybe wait a few weeks as they are just turning up now so maybe looking for nesting sites. They were flying over houses on Whatman \ Bovil Road and around there at lunchtime today, was great to see.

Anyone who has ever tried to photograph swifts will appreciate these superb shots.

I see the Lewisham Swifts Facebook Group notes swifts have taken up 2 of the nest boxes put up 2 years ago with the help of the local fire brigade on Wynell Road. Great news.

Link Here

I absolutely love these birds. I live on St German’s road and at this time of year every evening just before dawn you get hundreds flying over the vista in our garden. It is the most theatrical and therapeutic thing to watch (especially with a glass of rose!). I didn’t know they were in decline. Would be hugely supportive of any local preservation plans!