Niches for Swifts

The church in Bossay sur Claise has recently undergone a major and extensive restoration, which included the bells, as well as interior and exterior masonry. 

 

All the black squares are pieces of slate blocking up most of the scaffolding holes, except for a slot at the top. It allows swifts to enter into the cavity behind, but not pigeons.

One of the elements they got right was ensuring spaces remained for the swift colony to continue to breed in the building. So many recent 'conservation' renovations have ignored the existence of swift colonies and their nest hole entries have been blocked up. They like to nest in the small niches formed when the ends of the original wooden scaffolding rots away and leaves a hole in the masonry. Modern masons and architects want to block these off to prevent pigeons occupying them, but they don't understand that they are also banishing the swifts. The solution is simple, and involves the masons closing off the niches with a piece of slate that doesn't go all the way to the top, kind of like a letterbox. The trick is to educate the masons and architects so that this simple solution is applied. In Bossay, SOS Martinets, the local swift conservation association, managed to get through to the right people and save the day. I understand that the swifts have accepted the new arrangement and nested in the church last year.

 

Further reading: SOS Martinet (in French) https://sosmartinets.com/