Last month we were thrilled that BlueGreen Labs was formally listed as one of the projects in the Pairi Daiza Foundation Conservation report through their support in biologging of swifts in both Belgian and Portuguese colonies. The Foundation sponsored geologgers were fitted by Lyndon and Portuguese colleagues last summer and retrieved this year.
Also, this week a couple of juvenile swifts (Apus apus) took to the wing from their nest boxes in Melsele. The new video monitoring system (link) allowed us to capture this magic moment. These two young birds will not land for several years, before starting their own nests. The video below shows this incredible moment.
The new video system allowed us to subsequently capture one of the parent birds, which was carrying a Pairi Daiza supported geologger, without disturbing the nest. It is clear that the video monitoring of nest boxes has served it’s purpose well by establishing both pretty outreach pictures and research workflow opportunities.
