The beautiful sunny weather we've been having has seen me out in my garden even more than usual.
In-between planting out some green beans and thinning the lettuce, it was brilliant to hear the noisy wren from over the fence, the starlings pinging away from a nearby tree, to watch the male blackbird looking after his recently fledged youngster, and screaming above me, swifts chasing their dinner.
Although excited to see swifts zooming around above me, I wasn't so excited to see how few had made the journey back to our shores this year. Where in previous years I would see swifts in double figures, this time I saw just four in a group at any one time.
I'd like to think that some of them just haven't made it back here yet, but I know this isn't likely to be the case - the number of swifts coming back to nest in the UK have been steadily, and steeply, declining for the past 10 years.
However, I've learnt that it isn't all doom and gloom.
By filling in a simple form about the swifts you've seen, the results gathered will help build up a clearer picture of where swifts are nesting, meaning more nest sites can be provided and better protected - a small, but very important way to help these magnificent birds.
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It's great to hear that there are still swifts out there! They are the most amazing travellers - parents will fly for hundreds of miles to find food when there's bad weather locally. So when I see them over my house (none nesting in my village), I often wonder where their nest is. Sandy, Manchester, Brussels or London? The mind boggles...
Hi bluegalpin. I asked Darren, one of our Wildlife Enquiries team, to answer your query about birds of prey.
He says:
The presence of birds of prey is a good indicator that all is well with your local bird populations. It is always the top predator that dies out before their prey does. If there were no birds of prey in the area, then that really would be cause for concern, because it means that there is nothing for them to eat, ie. smaller birds.
Birds of prey predation presents a conspicuous and convenient explanation for songbird declines, but also a false one.
The real reasons for the declines in some species of bird remain habitat loss and degradation, climate change, illegal persecution and hunting, changes in architectural and agricultural practices and the threats from the illegal release into the wild of non-native species. These are the real causes for some songbird population declines and are the issues that we must seriously address.
There's more on this topic on our sparrowhawk page