Celebrating Swifts

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First ever World Swift Awareness Week 16-23 June 2018

You know summer has arrived when you hear their distinctive cries and screams and see them wheeling and swooping at breathing-taking speed in the skies above. These amazing birds spend 10 months of the year on the wing. They leave Africa to arrive here in early summer where they build their nests, rear their young, returning then to Africa.



They still grace our skies here in Putney but there are fewer - numbers are in sharp decline in the country plummeting by 50 per cent in the last 20 years according to the British Trust for Ornithology. Reasons include lack of nesting areas and a sharp decline in insect numbers – swifts feed only on insects.

The good news is that we can help stop this sharp decline e.g. by making buildings and homes more swift friendly for these birds to make their nests. Log onto nbn.org.uk/event/uk-swift-awareness-week and action link in it to find out how you can help. And for the first time ever we have swifts nesting in our home in the eaves which is a privilege.

Mary-Claire Mason

June 22, 2018