Swift Towers in Hampshire

At the start of 2024 there were three Swift towers in Hampshire. The most successful of these has been the one at Kingsworthy that was installed by developer HAB in early 2017. It was constructed and installed by a company from N Ireland. In 2024 it had at least seven pairs nesting in the 20 nest chambers. Interestingly, all were on the lower level. Why that is we don’t know.

The field immediately behind the tower in the picture below is now a wonderful flower meadow managed by the local council.

Another tower was installed at Whiteley, near Fareham, by the same NI company but with 12 chambers. This has been used by House Sparrows but not, as far as I’m aware, by Swifts. Unlike at Kingsworthy, the call player has never worked since installation and my attempts to get it working have failed. Swifts nest in natural sites in the houses about 150m away but without a working call player I think it may be a long time before the tower boxes are used.

The third Swift tower was erected in the garden of a passionate Swift fan in the village of Longparish but the house has subsequently changed hands. I don’t know if it was ever used or even if it is still there.

Late in 2023, we were contacted by the National Trust who were interested in having a Swift tower installed on their land at Mottisfont. The NT had, many years ago, installed some large timber telegraph poles with platforms for Ospreys to nest on but, as Ospreys are very slow to colonise new areas as the male young return to their natal areas to nest, it was decided to repurpose one of these and it was reduced in height to about 6m above ground level. Roger Maynard set to work to manufacture the boxes whilst the National Trust had a company manufacture the steel frame.

On 2 May 2024, the NT hired a cherry picker for the installation of the box on top of the pole. Roger had ensured that there was a great ventilation system to try and ensure that the boxes didn’t overheat in hot weather.

The roof was felted with high grade roofing felt and with solar reflective paint on top.

The solar panel to power the battery for the call player was fitted to the pole below the nest chambers and the electronics were secured in a box above cattle head height so that it wouldn’t be damaged by mischievous bovines. And whilst the installation went on, there were our first Swifts of the year feeding just overhead. Hopefully it won’t take too long for the first Swifts to start nesting here. Grateful thanks are due to Catherine Hadler and Kurt Love from the National Trust for their hard work in making this happen.

And we always see other interesting things while we are out, in this case we heard and saw several Cuckoos including a pair mating, and what I think is Candlestick Fungus Xylariahypoxylon growing out of a piece of cut timber on the ground.

While I was at the Bird Fair this year I was very interested to see that Peak boxes had a stand and were showing their design for a Swift Tower.

They had reduced the height of the pole in order to get it into the marquee, but it looks to be a very well thought out design at a reasonable price. I know of plans to install two of these in Hampshire before the Swift season starts in 2025 – more on these later! Both will have House Martin cups installed on the underside of the Swift boxes.

And I know of a further Swift tower that has been installed on a small housing development on the edge of Romsey in early 2024. I’ve never been a fan of Swift towers that are designed by artists for several reasons. Firstly, cost: this one has allegedly cost about four times the price of one from Peak boxes. Secondly I think I’m right in saying that artist-designed towers have rarely if ever worked in the past and some have been a complete and utter waste of large amounts of money. Hopefully this one will prove successful. I’m told that it has a call player but it has been installed rather too close to the trees in my opinion, where predators like Sparrowhawks might sit and wait for an opportunity. The new houses here have also had quite a few Swift bricks installed which is great.

Romsey Swift tower installed in early 2024.

PS - actually there are four Swift Towers in Hampshire not three as I stated at the start. There is another at Tice's Meadow Nature Reserve near Aldershot but I will do a separate blog about this.