Swifts and the Crescent Arts Centre

Peter Cush, Senior Scientific Officer at the Biodiversity Unit of the NIEA, has been working with us to preserve the swift colony at the Crescent Arts Centre while the refurbishment project takes place. He’s penned some notes on his work for us to share here:

No one knows when the first swift chose to nest in the roof of the Crescent Arts Centre building. However, we do know that some former 1940’s pupils of Victoria College, which occupied the building between 1874 and 1972, remember hearing swifts screaming round the building in the summer months.

These birds enjoy the company of their own kind and it is likely that as each year passed more and more birds were gradually attracted to the growing colony. Experts think that the Crescent Arts Centre now houses the largest remaining colony of the species in Northern Ireland (Between 20 to 50 pairs).

Thus the Crescent colony had built up probably over decades but if we were not careful during the refurbishment this wonderful natural spectacle could have been lost for all time from the building.

Fortunately everyone involved was determined not only to make sure that the building was faithfully restored but to try as much as possible to look after the needs of the swifts. Thus the various funders, the architects, the contractors, the project manager and experts on the species got together and worked out a plan. This was aimed at not only protecting the swifts during the actual work but securing their nest sites for future years and indeed providing new ones by building special “swift bricks” into the fabric of the new build.

Hopefully the work of this determined partnership will ensure that the marvelous spectacle of the swifts dashing flights as they scream around the building on fine summer days will inspire and be marveled at by generations to come.

One simple step that has already been taken has been to do most of the work on the roof when the swifts were away in Africa but we are now entering a critical stage of the project (May to August 09) when the swifts and the building workers will be working all summer long in close proximity! However we are all confidant that the most critical people at this stage, the contractors, understand and are sympathetic to the needs of the birds.

We are also confident that we will see the whole project through to a successful conclusion. If indeed we achieve this success it will certainly be a great example of what can be achieved by sectors working together.

If you’d like to contribute to the refurbishment project, you can sponsor a swift box on our donations page.

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