Save our swifts
In an extract from Nature Needs You: the Fight to Save Our Swifts, author and activist Hannah Bourne-Taylor recalls the start of her groundbreaking campaign to see homes for swifts built into all new UK housing developments – a fight which is still ongoing
Local swift conservationist Chris Mason tells Oxfordshire communities about the resident swifts by taking people on evening walks to places where there are large performing colonies. Skulking at the edge of the group in a back street of Bicester, I listened to Chris’s gentle voice introducing the wonder of swifts to the small group. As they flew over right on cue, everyone looked up and gasped like they were watching fireworks. The ordinary cul-de-sac was transformed by the swifts, a connection to the natural world among parked cars and pavements. A palpable sense of community sprang up. Passers-by stopped, looking up in awe, joining the crowd in delighting in the whoosh of wings overhead. People who were neighbours but had never spoken, chatted, bonding over their mutual wonder.
Next to me, an elderly woman who hadn’t taken her eyes off the swifts suddenly started talking. ‘All my life I have been too busy to notice, my mind wrapped around how I was going to get the kids to school on time, get to work, get home, make ends meet. But now,’ she said, ‘I feel like finally I am living at sixty-nine. My old body is slow, my mind is getting on a bit, but I see these birds and they give me energy. They remind me I’m still ticking.’
‘Me too,’ a middle-aged man said, joining in. ‘I always thought birdwatching was for oddballs but come on, I mean, just look at them!’ He smiled up as about twenty birds shot past us in a formation that looked like a Red Arrow flyover. ‘They’re blooming magnificent!’
‘They were the first thing my daughter smiled at after her accident,’ said one woman, quietly, just to me. ‘We’ve been told she’s unlikely to ever be able to walk again and she’s only nine, but little things like this take her mind off it.’ Her daughter was transfixed, her arms waving as her brothers ran, weaving through people with their arms out, copying, half boys, half birds.
More and more people chatted, asking endless questions to Chris because the more they saw the birds wheel and dive and scream, the more unbelievable they became. ‘So they really don’t land? They really fly all the way from here to Africa and back, the same birds?’ a man was asking Chris.
I smiled behind them, listening to Chris explain, and the people’s eyes widening, mouths opening in awe. The collective reaction was like giving your favourite book to someone who hadn’t read it, knowing the feeling they would get once they had finished. It was a gift. As I watched the way everyone came together, I realised this was the birds’ best chance. I just needed to harness this gift and amplify it to the scale of 100,000.
‘If anyone can do it, Hannah, it’s you,’ Chris said with his signature kindness.
Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts by Hannah Bourne-Taylor (Elliott & Thompson) is out now in hardback, ebook and audio. You can buy a copy here.
If you want to help swifts there are lots of ways to do so:
Join your local swift group or create one if there isn’t one near you. The Swift Local Network is full of local groups so you can get advice and support.
Write to your MP and ask them to support Hannah’s campaign.
Install a swift brick on your home or fit an external box. The ‘S Brick’ from Action for Swifts is great. Peak Boxes also have a good reputation.
