A swift box has recently been installed on the north-facing wall of the main building at KCS. It is one of three boxes given to Transition Town Kinsale by BirdWatch Ireland and the others have been installed at Kinsale Campus and at the Outdoor Education Centre.

It is all part of BirdWatch Ireland’s conservation project to protect swifts by installing nest boxes in suitable locations. Swifts nest in colonies so the boxes have either two or three openings for entry and need to be at least 4m off the ground on a north-facing wall. These boxes will provide new nesting sites and will hopefully augment the numbers of annual migrating Swifts. There are established colonies in St. Multose Church Tower, in the eaves of the O.E.C. and at the Municipal Hall.

Swifts are about the same size as swallows, but they are dark all over and spend virtually all of their lives airborne. They are never seen resting on wires as swallows and martins do. In flight it has a distinctive shape with scythe-shaped wings. Swifts are one of the fastest birds in Ireland. The voice is a high pitched scream. Their diet consists of invertebrates (flies, midges and spiders) caught in flight.

They arrive in Ireland in early May and leave again in August. These birds weighing just 40 grams fly a distance of 5,000 km over five or six days on their migration journey to and from tropical Africa. Swifts numbers are in considerable decline and are listed in the Red Conservation Status. The refurbishment of old buildings has reduced suitable sites for nesting and their food has become scarce due to the use of insecticides.