Swift boxes responsibility

There is an array of swift boxes fixed to the building where my office is. It's nice to hear them screaming around, and see them pop into and out of the boxes. But these boxes also attract a lot of swift researchers (swifties?). A while ago there was a cherry picker in front of the building, as people were installing a camera in one of the boxes. And later there was lots of walking around in my corridor as a microphone was also installed in one of them. They were doing that through the window, and the cable went through that same window to power the equipment.

A while ago I was coming out of the building to get to my bike to go home, and there were lots of swift people there. And it turned out that they had a new trick; they had fixed Velcro to all the boxes, with the idea of being able to attach a battery powered microphone pack to them. Most of them are not positioned so that you can easily run a cable to them. And they had put one such pack up.

I had a chat with them. It’s interesting to see what they could do with audio! The idea is that you can hear the parent come in with food, and that you can check what the time intervals are between these visits. What determines their length? Short ones mean it’s relatively easy to get a full load of food. If the periods get longer, something is amiss. It would be interesting to find patterns in this.

We also discussed the sparrows that seemed to very proudly take over these boxes in the winter, when the swifts are away. The swift people told me that indeed they often managed to get one brood in before the swifts return! I can imagine why they sometimes triumphantly stick their little sparrow heads out of the swift boxes and cheep away to tell everyone what they’re up to. 

Bold sparrow declaring themselves a squatter

When they had my ear anyway, the swift people asked if I would check every morning if the battery-powered microphone pack was still in position, and report back. So I did! 

I just reported all was well for two days. On the third day I had to report it seemed to be tilting. And the week after it was at a really precarious angle. 

Left: June 26 (the 3rd day); right; July 3

How will this saga continue? Will the swift people appear on time to save their microphone pack? Will they have to buy better Velcro? Will they indeed manage to find out under what circumstances it is easy for the swifts to find food without too much effort? Time will tell!