Swifts

Swifts are remarkable. They are possibly the most aerial creatures in the world, and you could safely describe their habitat as the air up to a staggering ten thousand feet or so above ground level. It’s an oft repeated fact that swifts spend most of their lives flying.

When the youngsters leave their nests in late July they may not touch ground again for three years, the age at which they reach breeding maturity. And in this time they will have flown to Africa and back  three times. Indeed, swifts may live to up to twenty years and conservative estimates put the distance they fly as the same distance to the moon and back six times. Quite a thought.

But of course swifts are so much more than those birds that never touch ground apart from when they nest. Take for instance their behavior during the breeding season. 

Being so aerial they don't have particularly strong legs. This means they have to throw themselves off things to take off as running would be impossible. To help them here though they are rather good at gripping on to vertical surfaces. And for this evolution has equipped with a unique arrangement of toes with all four facing forward rather than the usual three to the front and one to the back.

But occasionally swifts do land by accident though in places they can't leap off. When this happens you often hear that they need to be thrown up in the air. To be honest that always sounds a tad drastic to me. Alternatively you can simply hook or place them on to a suitable wall out of danger where they can crawl up and fly off as and when they want. Left to their own devices they’d probably crawl to a suitable vertical surface and haul themselves up to do this anyway.

Needing a suitable ledge from which to take off rather determines their choice of nests. And this is genuinely the thing that I find remarkable about swifts. With a handful of exceptions all the UKs populations of swifts nest in buildings. Not on cliffs. Not on tall trees. All on things made by us. So where did they nest before we had lots of buildings?  Or were their fewer than now? Or did they move gradually from natural to man made? 

Whatever the answer the fact remains that swifts are probably more directly dependant on us than any other bird. Which is why I think we have a really duty to help them out where we can.  And currently this seems more important than ever as swifts have been gradually declining over the past decade.

No one really knows why for sure. There's the dark spectre of climate change of course. Drought in their wintering grounds or more difficult migratory crossings of increasingly arid areas might play a part. And there may also be issues with the use of insecticides. Sadly one of the most common causes of death in swifts is thought to be starvation.

But also there may be fewer nesting places here in the UK. "Doing up" houses may well have been the fashion in the heady days of the housing boom but removal of all those loft spaces and gaps by which our birds could enter may have had its effect. Imagine a swift returning after its round trip to Africa to find its loft now a sealed playroom for little Kylie. Or its school roof with new plastic and impenetrable soffits.  

Naturally I'm not arguing for never doing up houses. Why, I always admired the creative use of MDF by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. But if a building is to be "done up" remember to think about the swifts, especially if you know they've used the site before.

If it’s a rebuild, or a new build, or anything involving an architect, then there’s plenty of advice on designing space for swifts into buildings. If its simply redecorating a place, then insist that the decorators don’t block up holes, or if they absolutely have to, fit a swift nest box. Do bear in mind though that anything fitted or built in below 5m is probably going to cause problems – remember, the birds need height from which to launch themselves. And for a bit of extra encouragement, you can get devices to play swift calls during the breeding season. This is a sure fire way of attracting attention, and has a good track record of attracting nesting birds.

And do remember, NEVER disturb nesting birds during the breeding season, not only is not good for the birds, it's also illegal!

Here in the south west there’s a lot of interest in swifts, with all the local bird clubs and the BTO actively conntributing to our knowledge of their distribution and conservation. If you see swifts, please do let us know via swift inventory, details of which can be found here. And if you are lucky enough to have swifts nesting please do consider calling us for advice on how to best look after them - contact the RSPB’s regional swift expert Stephen Fitt on 01392 432691 or stephen.fitt@rspb.org.uk .

Elsewhere around the region, Dorset Wildlife Trust has some good information on swifts here . And over the coming months the RSPB will also be working with Exeter City Council and Devon Wildlife Trust as part of Exeter Wild City on some special targeted swift work.