The fortress tomorrow
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Zamość - “The Green Fortress” - wants to be friendly not only to people but also to winged inhabitants of Zamość buildings.
One of them is the swift, a mysterious inhabitant of Zamość. Swifts can be found all over Europe. These unusual birds have taken a liking to high buildings, chimneys and church towers, becoming co-inhabitants of our cities. Recently the number of these birds has started to drop rapidly; it results from lack of appropriate locations for nests and sealing up entrance holes in buildings. Swifts also fall victim to toxic materials used for thermal insulation and construction works. When we look at the sky we often confuse swifts with common swallows. Swifts spend most of their lives in the air, where they prey, drink and even sleep and copulate. They can move with a speed from 40 to 100 km/h and sometimes even up to 160 km/h. In the past swifts lived in steep escarpments, crevices in the mountains and hollows in high tress. Some of them still live in colonies in the Tatra mountains, in the Wielkopolski National Park and in Białowieska Forest but most of them nest in towns, where they make nests in holes, cracks, flat roofs of old buildings, fortifications, industrial structures, chimneys and churches as well as in residential buildings. They come to Poland in May and are attached to their permanent breeding sites. If the site happens to be sealed, they often try at all costs to get into their “old” nest, which often leads to the death of exhausted specimens. Swifts are important to towns in many ways. They not only reduce the number of bothersome insects, such as mosquitoes, flies and black flies but also impress people with their aerial evolutions. Without this species of bird, residential districts and historical parts of the town would be very quiet! Lack of swifts would also disturb a fragile ecological balance in the town environment and we would have to pay for it by having to use chemicals to get rid of troublesome insects. The swift is a protected species pursuant to Nature Conservation Act of 16 April 2004 (The Official Journal of Laws No 92 Item 880 as amended) and Ordinance of the Minister of the Environment of 28 September 2004 on wild animal species (The Official Journal of Laws No 22 Item 2237). Unfortunately, in spite of appropriate provisions and their interpretation by the Ministry of the Environment, there are no effective tools to enforce the protection of these useful and harmless birds, which are a permanent element of Zamość landscape. In summer swifts sleep for 5 hours and prey for 19 hours, which means that they prey for 1140 minutes = 68.400 seconds. One swift catches 10.000 insects during one day. 10.000 insects caught in 68.400 seconds means that 1 insect is caught every 6.8 seconds. If no effective action is taken to protect swifts in repaired and insulated buildings, their number will drop in Zamość by as much as 60% as compared to that from a few years ago. We have to do our best to prevent it.
Swifts in towns:
- do not soil elevations of buildings and cars, do not block ventilation ducts and do not destroy buildings
- catch kilograms of troublesome black flies, flies and mosquitoes in flight (1 swift eats 10.000 insects a day, 400 of which are mosquitoes)
- add variety to and enliven the landscape of residential districts without disturbing human needs – they increase biological diversity in towns
Nest boxes are the way to control and keep useful birds in the buildings in which old nesting places have been destroyed as a result of repairs; sizes of entrance holes in nest boxes for swifts are too small for pigeons. Since swifts are not very well-known but also well-liked and connected with typical historical facilities, we should do our best to protect them. One good example of such attempts is “Jerzykowe Laboratorium” in Bielany near Warsaw, where Reverend Wojciech Drozdowicz installed a candid camera in nest boxes in the church tower. People can watch “live” broadcasts on an ED display by the entrance to the church.
SHARP DROP IN THE NUMBER OF SWIFTS IN TOWNS
The number of swifts decreases all over Europe. In Western Europe efforts have been made for over ten years now to protect these unusual birds and stop their extinction. Scientific research has shown that the number of swifts in European towns has decreased from 70% to 50% (A. Gatniejewski 2010) as a result of thermal insulation of buildings and lack of nesting places in new buildings. Even leaving openings does not protect the birds from contact with toxic substances and materials used to insulate flat roofs. At the same time, every year we have to cope with troublesome plagues of insects. The only way to preserve the species is to place nest boxes and in the case of new buildings, to use effective, safe and cheap solutions.
