Please help the swifts!

Our swifts spend their lives almost entirely in the air – sleeping, eating and bathing on the wing. They stay in Africa during our winter but at the end of April they return to the UK with just one thing on their minds – to mate and raise their young. They pair for life and return to the same site each year to lay and incubate their eggs. They like to live in houses and churches, squeezing through tiny gaps to nest inside roofs. But as more old buildings are renovated and gaps in soffits are closed up, swift nest sites are fast disappearing.

This, in part, has resulted in swifts being added to the Red List, the UK’s highest conservation priority, needing urgent action. By installing a swift brick in a wall, or putting up a nestbox, you could give a pair a place to rest and raise a family, as several folk in Sibford have already done.

For more information, please watch this short video about swifts and what you can do to help them. Please also consider signing this government petition for making swift bricks compulsory in new housing.