The summer of 2008 was the first summer in our new house, and my first summer ever with nest boxes for Common Swifts. I've built two nest boxes that I, with
some help, have attached to the wall under the gutter of our house. One of the boxes contains a high tones speaker (a so-called tweeter), which I used to
play Swift calls from a cd I obtained from the Dutch swallow advise bureau (Zwaluwen Adviesbureau
(site in Dutch) in 2008, 2009 and 2010. These calls can interest passing Swifts to come take a look and so discover the nest boxes. Swifts are birds that
nest in colonies, so they can be interested in calls coming from below when flying by. Even when using these sounds, it can take years before Swifts start
using nestboxes to breed. It took me three seasons before one entered one of my nest boxes on June 24th 2010.
Below you can find a record of what's happening in my attempt to start a new colony here in the Goudenregenstraat in Beek.
And read more about my camera set-up here (use the Google Translator to translate to crappy English).
