On Thursday 14th March 2024, Louise Bentley from Bolton and Bury Swifts gave a talk ‘Summer Wings – Saving Swifts, Swallows and Martins’.
Swifts have lived alongside us for centuries, as our close companions, but like many birds they have declined alarmingly and are now Red Listed.
The Swift population in the UK has halved over the past two decades, due to loss of nesting sites as houses are renovated and insect populations have been decimated.
Swifts are very loyal to their nest sites, and spend their entire lives on the wing. Imagine flying 250000 miles in a year, only to get home and find your front door bricked up and plastered over!
But it’s not all gloom – there are some dedicated people out there working with Louise in specialist Swift conservation groups and we’ve included the websites of a couple of them on our Links page.
And we can all help!
- As nature lovers and birders we can sign up and use the Swiftmapper citizen science project.
- We can put up nestboxes on our buildings, or better still, protect and preserve nests and leave a few nooks and crannies when we renovate.
- We can make our gardens homes for insects by banning the bug-sprays, planting nectar-rich flowers, leaving dead wood and leaves lying around, and digging a wildlife pond
Louise left us with a couple of useful Swift information leaflets with a whole heap of fun facts, and practical information on nest boxes and how to rescue a swift if you find it on the ground.
Thanks for an inspiring talk, Louise!