Sanctuary Life
Bugs are just the thing for Swifts
Update: (6/6/21). Thank you to everyone who has donated following our appeal. We’re a little overwhelmed. We should have plenty of bugs this week to keep the little birds fed. However, we will need these feeds throughout the season until September time so if you would still like to donate we kindly ask to order it next month July so to stagger donations coming in so the food doesn’t go to waste.
We hate to bug you (cough) but we are urgently in need of some live critters to feed our baby birds and swifts. It’s the time of the year for orphan nestlings and we have daily admissions needing our help. Swifts are unusual as they feed almost exclusively on the aerial plankton of flying insects and airborne spiders. They mainly feed at 50-100 metres in the air. A baby Swift is an especially difficult species to rear successfully as it is a pure insectivore. The adults feed the chicks several times every day with compressed food balls made up of different kind of insects, all caught in flight. You must never feed Swifts bread, grain, or mealworms / earthworms. These foods are unsuitable and can harm the young ones. Crickets and wax moth larvae are best. We’ve added some to our Amazon wishlist and would be ever so grateful for any wildlife lovers who can help with sponsorship feeding our babies.
You can purchase them at Amazon and they deliver straight to our sanctuary.
50 small roaches
