Hello All - I think I need some advice.
I’m ashamed to say I’m not very interested in birds at all – although my wife has a very keen interest. I live on a typical modern housing estate and around the end of May some neighbours installed ‘swift boxes’ in the eves of their house. To help attract the birds they are playing an audio recording of swift noises on speakers. It’s on an endless loop that runs from early morning until around just after dark. The noise repeats every 10 seconds with 5 seconds of swift sounds then 5 seconds silence. I find it quite a bit louder than the background bird chatter. Very occasionally it’s turned down, and just resonantly the have occasionally switched it off. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a week or so, but now it’s being going on for a month and a half it’s really getting to me to the extent I can’t go out in the garden anymore. Perhaps I’m oversensitive to that particular frequency, but it’s having a similar effect on me to finger nails down a blackboard. Even when I’m sitting in my living room , and with the windows open, the sound penetrates over the television.
Now, I know I’m being very mean spirited, and setting up the boxes is a really nice thing to do for the birds– but it’s driving me nuts and so I’d really appreciate some thoughts from an ornithologists perspective. I’m especially keen to find out if it’s necessary to help the swifts. If it’s just there because it means my neighbours will have swifts on their house as opposed to somewhere else I’ll find it hard to be accepting, but on the other hand if you indicate that swifts are endangered and it will really help them out then I will find it a lot easier to sympathise ?
Thanks in advance
David
I’m ashamed to say I’m not very interested in birds at all – although my wife has a very keen interest. I live on a typical modern housing estate and around the end of May some neighbours installed ‘swift boxes’ in the eves of their house. To help attract the birds they are playing an audio recording of swift noises on speakers. It’s on an endless loop that runs from early morning until around just after dark. The noise repeats every 10 seconds with 5 seconds of swift sounds then 5 seconds silence. I find it quite a bit louder than the background bird chatter. Very occasionally it’s turned down, and just resonantly the have occasionally switched it off. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just a week or so, but now it’s being going on for a month and a half it’s really getting to me to the extent I can’t go out in the garden anymore. Perhaps I’m oversensitive to that particular frequency, but it’s having a similar effect on me to finger nails down a blackboard. Even when I’m sitting in my living room , and with the windows open, the sound penetrates over the television.
Now, I know I’m being very mean spirited, and setting up the boxes is a really nice thing to do for the birds– but it’s driving me nuts and so I’d really appreciate some thoughts from an ornithologists perspective. I’m especially keen to find out if it’s necessary to help the swifts. If it’s just there because it means my neighbours will have swifts on their house as opposed to somewhere else I’ll find it hard to be accepting, but on the other hand if you indicate that swifts are endangered and it will really help them out then I will find it a lot easier to sympathise ?
Thanks in advance
David