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09/11/2022

How to do it when a swift nest, but you need to insulate the house?

This bad thing can be prevented. When renovating or building a new building, you don't have to make an either/or choice. You can have both: extraordinary nesting flights and a low utility bill. License |Some Rights ReservedPhoto | Klaus Roggel, Berlin / Wikimedia Commons What can you do if you are going to insulate or renovate a house, so as not to destroy their nests and thus not violate the law on nature and landscape protection? We know, ads are annoying. And we respect that you have them turned off :-) We will be happy if you support us in a different way.

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If the rorys are already living with you this year, give them peace of mind to take care of the young. From April 20 to August 10 of each year, nest protection applies. Do not disturb them with construction work. Two floors from the nest, within a five meter radius, it is for the time of the robins.

Positive news: It can be done correctly and well

When insulating the house, you can work outside the attic, avoid the nest zone, do not build scaffolding to the top, and tackle the finishing touches only after the protection is finished. It just needs to wait a while. That is, if there are robins nesting in your house, plan the construction work so that it either ends by mid-April or starts at the end of the summer holidays.

It may happen that during the reconstruction or insulation of the house it is necessary to cover the openings. In that case, you can ideally install booths for rorys in the same place. License | Free work (public domain) Photo | Tonio Schaub / Wikimedia Commons

At the same time, plan the insulation in such a way that free intake openings are maintained. It is not a brutal financial increase in the cost of the project, nor is it a senseless green hooliganism. Mostly it involves partial preservation and modification of the ventilation vents in the attic, preservation of the cavity in the original panel and air inlets.

You don't have to rediscover America, most of the practical procedures and solutions are very well described in layman's and technically digestible literature. Take a look at Rorýsi.cz, for example, where there are many examples of good practice and where there are also contacts of ornithologists who have experience in protecting rorís and are happy to advise on technical solutions.

It may happen that during the reconstruction or insulation of the house it is necessary to cover the openings. In such a case, you can ideally install birdhouses in the same place. Booths can be wooden, wood-cement, and sometimes extruded polystyrene, installed in the attic or already on insulated facades (which do not seriously pollute rorys). How such booths look and how to install them easily can be found on the website rorýsi.cz.

You can buy them ready-made, but according to ornithologists, any skilled craftsman can make a birdhouse for almost free or at minimal cost. It's just a good idea to look at the website to see what such a booth should look like. It is true that the closer the box is to the original nest, the greater the probability that the robin will occupy it.

You can buy ready-made nest boxes, but according to ornithologists, any skilled craftsman can make a nest box himself. License | Free work (public domain) Photo | Marton Bernsten / Wikimedia Commons

What to do if they nest at your place robins, but you need to insulate the house?

Story birds can be endangered during nesting not only by covering their inlet holes with insulation, but also by ordinary scaffolding equipped with a protective net. This can be a serious problem for birds. The puffins literally need to get out of the nest to get up to speed. And for that they ideally need at least five meters of free space.

This is also important to think about when installing booths. If you put them in a place where there is not enough free space underneath, you have wasted your effort.

You can support the rorýs by participating in the monitoring of their local populations. Because field data is never enough and it certainly deserves our attention. You can really do a lot for them.

Roys are the superheroes of the bird kingdom

What can they do? The record holders of this bird species fly from Europe to the south of Africa in 18 days. It spends ten months of the year moving in the air without much difficulty. By soaring flights and sailing, practically non-stop. They hunt, drink, mate and mate in flight. And he sleeps. To do this, they only need to fly up to a height of two kilometers and, on the autopilot of one half of the brain, drift down with air currents in microsleep.

Hornbills hunt, drink, mate and mate in flight. And he sleeps. All they have to do is fly up to a height of two kilometers and, on the autopilot of one half of the brain, drift down with air currents in microsleep. License | Some rights reserved Photo | Klaus Roggel / Wikimedia Commons This is how it can keep working for 200 days straight, without touching the solid ground under its feet. So that, when they return home one day, they will establish a safe nest among the "canyons and cliffs" of the apartment buildings in the heights. In the same place where they nested last year and the year before.

There, she and her counterpart will spend 6 or more weeks caring for 2-3 whitish eggs and subsequently the young. The work of collecting "air plankton", i.e. small arthropods carried by the wind, is not exactly easy, but inexperienced flyers can handle it. And right here it is appropriate to add that the robin feeding its young flies into the narrow inlet of the nest cavity, only a few centimeters in size, at a speed of up to 70 kilometers per hour.

So if someone blocked his entrance with thermal-insulating plasterboard during a feeding expedition for the young, the last thing on his mind would probably be his own ass. Even the varied experiences of a 13,000-kilometer expedition to another continent and an aerobatics championship are of no use to rorys when they encounter human stupidity.

It's the same story over and over again. Basically, it's the story of every feathered creature who brazenly dared not to die and somehow learned to survive in a human-altered environment.

Even if their neighborhood is demonstrably not harmful to us - we usually don't even hear about puffins outside the fantastic displays of their aerial acrobatics outside the windows of apartment buildings - we definitely don't overdo it when we try to get along with them. At the same time, only really little would be enough. A little good will and willingness to accept the fact that for a few days these useful birds live with us. Considering they spend 80% of their entire existence trying not to get in our way and staying hundreds of meters away from us, they certainly deserve it.

Twenty years ago, around 120,000 pairs were nesting in the Czech Republic. But then it started to be reconstructed, renovated, warmed up. The positive turn for builders and the increase in energy efficiency of buildings soon began to take its toll. First in the form of stagnation, the population rises, then in its decline. Up to 45% locally. License |Some Rights ReservedPhoto | Emili V. López Álvarez / Flickr

So what problem do rorys have with us?

Primarily the fact that they are running out of places to nest. By our doing. Mostly, these are convenient cavities at really considerable heights, where no four-legged predator without climbing equipment can get behind them. Corroded facades of high-rise buildings, dislodged panels of the walls of block of flats, cracks in the attic and penetrations to the soil under the covering of tiles. At the same time, the landscape of Czech cities offered more than enough of such places until recently. Twenty years ago, around 120,000 pairs nested in the Czech Republic.

But then they began to reconstruct, renovate, insulate. However, the positive turn for builders, the sympathetic increase in the energy efficiency of buildings, and the improvement of the aesthetics of concrete gray soon began to take their toll. Paid in rorys. First in the form of stagnation of their non-rejuvenating population, then in its decline. Locally by up to 45%, which is already quite a drop.

When the puffin loses its "original" nesting place after returning from Africa, it won't have time to find a new one this year. And he probably won't succeed even next year, because suitable places are rapidly decreasing. We all insulate and save energy, because it is ecological and economical. At the same time, the rorys were forgotten.

What gives the decline of not only the Czech puffin population the dimension of a real tragedy is the fact that the bad can be prevented. Yes, you don't have to make an either/or choice when renovating or building a new building. You can have both: extraordinary nesting flights and a low utility bill. But first you have to want it yourself.