This month the focus is firmly on swifts.
No problem if you can’t tell a swallow from a swift. Swifts are not to be confused with swallows or house martins, both have large areas of pale colour. Swifts do not, they are dark on colour all over. Unlike swallows and martins, swifts do not perch on wires.
Swifts feed, drink, preen, sleep and even mate on the wing, only ever landing when they need to nest and lay eggs.
Swift - Jon Hawkins – Surrey Hills Photography
They are long distance migrants, spending nine months flying endlessly over the forests of the Congo.
To see and hear swifts screaming low over rooftops watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd3NlfbA7yQ
They are (or were) the very sound of summer in our towns and villages.
When swift chicks fall out of their nests, skilled wildlife rehabilitators are needed to look after them.
These rehabbed chicks look ready to go. Once airborne they won’t land for two years! Merv Day.
Swifts in trouble
Ten years ago, with no budget and no plan or strategy, I started a Derbyshire Swift Conservation Project. Trying to cover the whole county was hard but gradually, with growing support from others, the profile of this beleaguered bird has been raised, boxes installed, training held and local swift groups started.
By joining the excellent national swift forum I gained from the knowledge of people who knew far more about swifts than I did.
That forum now links 140 local swift groups throughout the UK…groups that provide more local support than for any other bird!
So what’s the problem?
Being almost exclusively insectivorous you might think, given the collapse of insect populations, that lack of food was the main problem. However, cameras placed inside nest boxes show that, in a ‘normal summer’ and even in abnormal ones like this, swifts bring plenty of food back for their chicks and chick survival is good.
The root cause of the 60% decline is the catastrophic loss of their traditional nest sites. Swifts nest hidden inside buildings, gaining access mainly through tiny gaps in the walls behind gutters and under eaves where mortar has fallen out. When older properties are renovated, these gaps are routinely filled in and the birds are excluded from their nests.
Part of the problem is that there is no external evidence that a building has swifts nesting. Unlike house martins which build obvious mud nests under eaves, swifts don’t even leave any droppings which might show surveyors where they are accessing their nests.
Watch this child-oriented video: https://youtu.be/AJhc-vcssKc
‘Fire fighting’ for swifts, again….
Every summer since 2014 I have been alerted to buildings somewhere in the county where scaffolding has gone up right in front of occupied swift nests. The birds are so desperate to get back to their chicks that they physically bang up against the intervening scaffold poles. It’s a sorry sight.
Even though disturbing active bird nests is against the law, asking for scaffold to be taken down and the building work stopped or delayed is never easy.
What’s the solution?
Trying to prevent the loss of nest sites rarely works because old housing such as council houses, simply has to be improved with new roofs, plastic soffits and often external insulation as well.
So installing external nest boxes on existing properties is often the way to go…as well as trying to educate the building industry, planners, ecological consultants etc.
Installing boxes is easy and cheap provided you can find someone willing to climb a ladder safely or operate a cherry picker.
Swift box - Vaughn Matthews
With new buildings, the plan is to get internal ‘swift bricks’ installed as the walls are being built. Again this is simple, quick and very cheap to do provided you can get the developers and the councils on board.
Raising Awareness
In 2018, I proposed to the swift forum that we set up an annual UK Swift Awareness Week, an idea quickly adopted by groups across the UK. Over 100 Swift walks and talks were arranged that first year and we enjoyed some great media coverage too.
Now in its seventh year, UK SAW2024 has over 80 events running next week - including nine in Derbyshire.
See all 80 here: SAW 2024 events - Google Docs . I am still the UK coordinator.
How You can help Swifts
1. Support one of the events.
2. Consider putting nest boxes on your house. Check out the Swift-Conservation website and the Action for Swifts blog.
3. Report any streets where you see swifts flying low over rooftops or where swifts enter or leave properties: Derbyshire Swift Survey Form - Derbyshire Swift Conservation (all data is shared with DBRC).
4. Volunteer to help survey in the next few weeks. Focus this year is on Belper and Derbyshire Dales. Contact me for details.
5. Sign a petition set up by the Welsh Wildlife Trusts, aimed at getting the Welsh government to mandate swift bricks in all new builds in the principality. You don’t need to live in Wales to sign! Simply search for ‘Welsh Swift Petition’ or go to
Legislate to ensure swift bricks are installed in all new buildings in Wales. - Petitions (senedd.wales) .
6. Sign up for my Swift Update emails. I’ve sent out nearly 200 since I started. Over 350 ‘swifties’ receive them. https://derbyshireswiftconservation.co.uk/
