Swift boxes made by volunteers installed in church

1 June 2024

Hattie McCannBBC News, Devon

News image — Stuart McFadzean (centre left) and the team worked all winter to get the boxes ready for installation

Fiona Clark The cabinets of swift boxes with the men who made them. — Stuart McFadzean (centre left) and the team worked all winter to get the boxes ready for installation

Bird enthusiasts have built a series of swift nest boxes for a town church in a bid to boost their population.

The boxes have been put up in the belfry of St Michael and All Angels Church, Bampton, Devon.

The RSPB said nationally swift numbers had declined by 53% between 1995 and 2016.

Stuart McFadzean, a swift expert for Mid Devon Wildlife group, said a lack of nest sites was to blame.

Fiona Clark Two men trying to get the nesting box cabinets through a very narrow doorway. — It was a tight squeeze getting the cabinets up the Victorian spiral staircase in the church tower

Bampton resident, Fiona Clark, first had the idea for the project when she saw swifts flying around the church tower and wondered "if maybe years ago they had access, and thought wouldn't it be wonderful if they could again".

She also paid for some of the materials for the boxes.

A group of volunteers spent the winter building the boxes, and then had to squeeze them up the narrow Victorian staircase of the church tower, to the belfry.

Fiona Clark Swift boxes fitted into the window of a church bell tower. — The swift boxes are fitted to the inside of the louvre openings

Mr McFadzean said the birds could go in "through the gaps that you see on the outside [and] into the nest boxes that we have made for them", but not into the bell chamber itself.

Tony Mount, the churchwarden, said "there has already been people asking if they've arrived yet".

"We are waiting with our fingers crossed."

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