A FORDINGBRIDGE resident has called for action after the “heart-breaking” deaths of several chicks.

Sandra Tipler’s property on Augustus Park has a swift brick installed and she had been delighted to her the chirps of the nesting blue tits who had set up home inside.

However, the joy of watching the parents take care of the young birds did not last and she says during the summer all five of the chicks ended up dying.

“I was out in the garden with my mum and thought ‘what’s that on the patio?’. There were two baby chicks dead. It was awful. My husband picked them up as I just couldn’t.

“We could still hear the chicks chirping and thought what on earth happened. We were thinking that another bird got in there and kicked them out but as we stood there three more chicks rained down around us and landed on the patio. One was still partially alive."

She believes the birds nesting in the brick were overheating adding: "They tried to cool themselves and ended up falling to their deaths. 

“It was heart-breaking.”

Sandra is keen to ensure this doesn’t happen again. She has researched the position of the swift bricks and believes it is in the wrong position and needs to be placed where there is shade for the birds to ensure they don’t overheat.

She has contacted the housebuilder Pennyfarthing Homes Ltd to see if they could move the swift brick or block it up but has had little success.

“Our garden is west facing and there is absolutely no shade whatsoever,” said Sandra.

“I have been fighting this and it needs to be moved or they need to block it. Pennyfarthing has flatly refused to do anything about it.

“With Pennyfarthing washing their hands of it they don’t give a monkeys if chicks live or die.”

Sandra says she has been told by the developer that the swift brick is in the right position and was told that she could block it herself.

She says more care needs to be taken with the positioning of these swift bricks and feels it is a “box ticking exercise” for builders.

A spokesperson for Pennyfarthing Homes Ltd said: “We are aware of the incident at Mrs Tipler’s property and are saddened to hear of the distress caused to Mr and Mrs Tipler, as well as the family of blue tits.

"We installed a swift brick, which can provide nesting accommodation for different types of birds and help regulate a lower temperature as integral to the building, as opposed to wall mounted bird boxes.

"Current planning conditions stipulate that we are not sanctioned to remove the brick, therefore we are arranging a meeting with our Ecological Consultants and manufacturers of the swift brick to help provide a solution.

“We take pride in delivering developments that carefully consider local wildlife and habitats. At Augustus Park, we installed a number of measures to protect local biodiversity and ensured they conformed to the planning conditions and the ecology report that was conducted on site prior to construction beginning. We will continue to work with local authorities and ecology specialists to implement new ways to meet the environmental needs of local wildlife across our developments.”