Colony Berlin

The nest (hole on the left) is placed in a window on the
4th floor. The nest on the right was never occupied.


On June 18th 1990 a pair of Swifts occupied a wooden nest box in the center of Berlin (Neukölln) and from the following year they have bred there continually. There is a colony of about 15 Common Swifts around this breeding pair. At first the pair in the box was the only breeding pair in the colony, but later on other pairs established themselves there too. 

One adult was marked with a ring from the German ornithological station Radolfzell with the number S 48406. It was identified as a male. It did not came back in 1999, when its place was taken by another male. The female probably changed in 1997. 

Together with its females the first male bred 17 chicks and raised 15 of them successfully. Two died in the rainy year of 1996 from lack of food.

In the year 1993 was a late brood and I recorded the last daily entry of both adults into the nest closely. Click here on Table 1 to find the collected data.

Table 2 shows the dates of egg-laying and fledging.  

Phenological and breeding dates of Common Swifts at a nest box in Berlin-Neukölln, Germany                                             © Ulrich Tigges

Dates in parentheses have not been verified

The median of the arrival of the advance guard” in Berlin is 24.04. That is 14 days before the arrival of the ”main body” (N=24, see APUSlist 2405). The duration of the species’ stay in the breeding area is 109 days, the duration of the species’ stay on the nest is 95 days.

Note: The “median” is in the middle of a row of specified dates. The difference between the medians of arrival and departure is the same as the arithmetical medial from the length of the stays, unlike the dates from the development of the chicks, where the dates differ by 1.5 days.

For dates from the colony in Skurup, Sweden please click here.

To see the Common Swift calendar, click here.

Some pictures of the colony in Berlin

DK1 Entrance hole
This is the entrance hole of the nestbox,
measuring 38 x 64 mm. Below the hole you
can see two dark areas caused by the Swifts’
tail feathers brushing against the nestbox as
they enter it. This helps them reduce speed.





DK1 Three eggs
Swifts in Central Europe mostly lay two or three eggs. The
pairs in this nestbox mostly lay three eggs, but rise only two
chicks. They throw the third egg out of the nest.





Broken egg
Sometimes there are fights in the nestbox and eggs get
broken. Only individuals of the same sex fight each other
and break eggs like this.





DK breeding3
One adult on the nest, hatching. One pink-colored chick can be seen in the
background, below the adult’s wing.





DK1 Three pulli
In 1992 three chicks were raised.





DK1 3 pulli
Before ringing.





DK1 Visit
This is what it looks like when a visiting Swift checks the nestbox. It will fly close to the entrance
hole and sometimes scream before turning back. You can see dark areas from the tail feathers
below the hole very clearly here.





DK1 Interior of nestbox
This is what a nestbox looks from the inside, at the end of one breeding season. On the right (at the bottom) is the nest. It is as far from the entrance hole as possible. You can see the entrance hole as the dark horizontal stripe on the upper left. On the left are balls of faeces. Towards the end of the season, the parents become a little careless and don’t remove every faecal ball the chicks produce.


For the past few years, the colony has also seen a spectacular display by non-breeders. At dusk or shortly  before it, they assemble then repeatedly build a loudly screaming flock that stays together for 200-300 meters before separating ready to do the same again. As it gets dark, they fly higher and higher above the same site, eventually disappearing into the darkness for sleep on the wing. 





At twilight the non-breeders assemble





They build flocks and scream





Finally they disappear into the darkness
 

Papers written about this colony:

Tigges, Ulrich (1994): Beobachtungen am Mauersegler (Apus apus) und Bericht über eine Spätbrut 1993. Berliner ornithologischer Bericht 04:129-141 (APUSlist No. 0195) 

Tigges, Ulrich (1995): Kann man Mauersegler gezielt ansiedeln? Der Falke 42: 250-252 (APUSlist No. 0041) 

Tigges, Ulrich (1999): Spatial behaviour of the Common Swift (Apus apus) APUSlife 0061 

Tigges, Ulrich (2000): Territoriumgedrag van Gierzwaluwen (Apus apus) in de lucht. Apus 07: 3-5 (APUSlist No. 2548) (Dutch version of APUSlife No. 0061)

Tigges, Ulrich (1999): Das täglich letzte Einfliegen der Mauersegler (Apus apus) in Abhängigkeit von Brutphänologie, Umwelt- und sozialen Faktoren. Berliner ornithologischer Bericht 09: 49-58 (APUSlist No. 0067) (German version of APUSlist No. 2340) 

Tigges, Ulrich (1999): On the breeding phenology of the Common Swift (Apus apus) the last diurnal return to nest with reference to environmental and social factors. APUSlife 2240 (English version of APUSlist No. 0067) 

Other colonies