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Showing posts from April, 2017

Swifts are in

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Swifts are among the last summer migrants to arrive and around the first to leave our shores. Some birds were recorded over Island Barn and Staines Reservoir last week, and my records show that this is the week when they usually arrive in Kingston and are found feeding over Pen Ponds. Breeding still takes place in Berrylands (14) with young fledging around the first week of August. Peak numbers are recorded from birds breeding at Bushy Park, Hogsmill Sewage Works, R. Thames, and Sunny Surbiton with the favoured deep eaves that characterise properties in and around Maple Road. Swifts  spend most of their life on the wing, including sleeping and mating. There are useful facts on swift biology here https://www.rspb.org.uk; although I find this website the more pertinent for the airing of issues surrounding the perilous decline of this bird http://swift-conservation.org Between 1995and 2011 we lost about a third of the birds that nest in Britain. A major reason for this was the larg