{"id":9271,"date":"2020-04-23T09:15:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T08:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=9271"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:59:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:59:44","slug":"swifts-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2020\/04\/23\/swifts-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Swifts again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, one of my projects was to investigate what might be done to attract swifts back to our house. I wrote about that <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/blog\/2019\/05\/23\/the-swift-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>. It was interesting to learn about the birds\u2019 life cycle and figure out what might be done to get them nesting again. We did not get any tenants last year &#8211; it would have been quite surprising if we did &#8211; but this year may be different \u2026<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I read that swifts return to Europe in the last week of April. This sounded curiously specific, as I am certain that the birds do not use a calendar, and I am sure that climate variations etc. would adjust the timing. So I decided to reinstall the swift attracting sound system in good time so that it is ready for their arrival and, about 10 days ago, we were up and running.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2020\/04\/Screenshot-2020-04-21-at-08.57.50.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-9272\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2020\/04\/Screenshot-2020-04-21-at-08.57.50-520x735.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"230\" height=\"325\" \/><\/a>We have grounds for optimism that some swifts may move into one of our boxes in the coming weeks. The hope is that some birds who returned in their second year in 2019 spotted our boxes and plan to take up residence.<\/p>\n<p>We noticed last year, and already this year, that some people, who are walking past our house, could hear the birdsong and were looking up to see where it was coming from. So I made a small sign explaining matters, which I laminated and fixed by our driveway. I have already seen people stop for a read. I look forward to seeing someone reading, then looking up excitedly at the birds coming and going from the boxes. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>If you are interested in what sound swifts make, you can hear it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3oqYxBeWeV4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a> [only sound, no video].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/colinwalls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6579\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/linkedin.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colin_walls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6583\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/twitter.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/colinwalls.author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6591\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/facebook.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6599\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/wordpress.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, one of my projects was to investigate what might be done to attract swifts back to our house&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10885,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions\/10885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}