Mayo Swift Week in full swing

Mayo Swift Week in full swing

Ciara Moynihan

Mayo Swift Week, which started yesterday (Monday) and runs until this Saturday, July 4, is a great opportunity to learn about the behaviour and biology of some amazing – and endangered – winged summer visitors to Mayo.
Swifts, which arrive in Mayo in April and leave for Africa in August, live their whole lives on the wing, stopping only to nest and rear their young. They eat, drink, preen, sleep and mate while flying. These small birds soar to 3,000 metres above the earth to sleep, restfully riding a thermal, with half of their brain on snooze.
While Charlestown yesterday hosted a ‘swift watch’, today (Tuesday) sees the launch of www.swiftconservation.ie, a focal point for people to provide and retrieve information on the conservation and biology of swifts in Mayo.
On Thursday, Cllr John Cribbin, Chair of Claremorris Municipal District, will officially switch on the new swift attraction calls at Claremorris Town Hall. This will be followed by a guided swift walk.
Friday sees another swift watch, this time at the GMIT Mayo campus in Castlebar, where nest boxes support breeding pairs.
The action moves to Westport on Friday, where there will be a talk on swifts at Westport Town Hall, followed by a swift walk in Westport town. Nest boxes have been built into the walls of the newly refurbished town hall in Westport, in a bid to help the town’s swift population to increase.

For more information, call Lynda Huxley on 094 9032422 or email natureofireland@eircom.net or heritage@mayococo.ie.