Collegium Veteranorum - 14 Mei 2009

Collegium Veteranorum.
The Veteran’s College is to set the first step in supplying the swifts with nests fitted for them and for them only. In an old city like Leuven ( the university is older than that of Oxford) there are many old buildings belonging to the university.
The buildings are old, they are high and they need to be renovated. That’s why swifts love them. There are many holes that will supply them with cosy homes and they took advantage of them. In the Pope’s College there is more or less 30 nests and the Pope’s College is to be renovated in 2010.
On most of these old buildings there are holes just under the eaves where they used to put the poles to support the scaffolding to work on the roofs. All these holes are covered with plates and all kinds of fancy things to keep birds like doves out, because of the mess they make. Sometimes there are open slits where swifts fit through and they nest behind the block or whatever is in the hole to close it.
When they started with the renovation of the Veteranorum, Louis-Phillip (our local swiftophile) suggested they close these holes with a block, leaving a slit open for swifts to nest in and the architect came up with a drawer-like thing, which can be pushed into the putlog hole. On the outside the hole is covered, but it has a open slit of the size swifts prefer as opening for their nests. Problem solved!

Today 36 of these holes were supplied with their “drawers”!