Another church’s spiral stairs which I was excited to climb and my excitement wasn’t the tiny bit curbed after climbing to the top, then realising this is the tallest church tower in Devon. Ok, I must admit, the first thought after I reached the bells was “I’m waiting for Fred to come back from Uni for this installation!” I spent some time in this area as a younger fella and have always had St. Nectan’s on my list from the beginning of the project.
Frances of the Hartland Nature Society granted access for the initial survey and described how much work they have already done to attract swifts to the village. It’s one of the longest serving swift nestbox projects in Devon with many nesting pairs revisiting every summer. So, a privilege for me to be involved and for the project to increase nesting potential.
More often than not, jackdaws will use church towers for nesting and they’ll go to great lengths to secure their twiggy nests to anything they can, especially the louvres and mesh (installed to keep them away!). Over time, their twig twiddling ways can poke holes in the mesh and they’ll gain entry and make a lovely mess in the bell chamber. I’ve surveyed towers where a couple of twigs halfway up the stairwell turned into a waist deep twig wading fest amongst the bells. Left unmanaged, this will occur. However, maintained meshwork will prevent this. But what if you’d like to be non exclusive and provide for swifts and jackdaws? Well, that’s what the Hartland Nature Society requested. So after consultation with a jackdaw specialist, Guill McIvor, I made 4 dedicated jackdaw nestboxes for the north louvre, and 42 swift nestboxes for the 3 other elevations. Guill confirmed that swifts are really not on the menu for jackdaws, which have a distinct preference for grain. Good news!
Thanks so much to Frances, Clare, Rob, and everyone else who enabled this installation It’s up there with some of my favourites! So good to deliver an inclusive approach, where we aren’t excluding one species, in favour of another. It’s so easy to cater for all crevice nesting species! Perhaps not bears though.
Rob, Clare, Frances, and Fred with the jackdaw and swift nestboxes.
Machining the jackdaw nestboxes
Through the louvres, a swift’s view.
Swift nestboxes installed. Adaptations to the existing shutters were required to house the colony boxes.
Jackdaw nestboxes installed, they are much larger chambers than swift (3X) nestboxes with an 80mm diameter access hole. The base of the box needs to be ‘keyed’ and not smooth otherwise the chicks may develop splayed legs on the slippery plywood which can trouble the birds for life. Fledging can be difficult, as can perching. Who knew? Thanks for the expertise Guill.
Fred earning his keep!
On top of Devon. The stunning Hartland coastline, with a little Lundy in Fred’s hand.
