Save Our Swifts: local organisations get together to protect swift colonies in the UNESCO Biosphere
June 28th – July 6th is Swift Awareness Week 2025 and we are working hard to raise awareness of a new collaboration led by the Galloway & Southern Ayrshire Biosphere Partnership, which aims to protect and support swifts in the UNESCO Biosphere.
The ‘Save Our Swifts’ (S.O.S) campaign is a joint project by GSABP with the D&G Swift Network, South West Scotland Environmental Information Centre (SWSEIC), and the Scottish Prison Service at HMP Dumfries, with support from the D&G Climate Hub, part of Scottish Government’s national network supporting community-led action on climate change. Prisoners in Dumfries are making swift boxes in their workshop, and GSABP’s Nature Recovery team are working with Biosphere Communities and volunteers from the D&G Swift Network to identify promising locations for installation. The public are getting involved as well, by recording swift sightings and reporting local colonies. Together the organisations involved have been running swift ID workshops around the UNESCO Biosphere to encourage this citizen science activity.
Conservation focused on swifts is especially urgent as their numbers plummet through accelerating habitat loss and climate change impacts that have reduced the availability of food (insects) and disrupted their breeding patterns. These beautiful birds lead fascinating lives, migrating between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, including the UK, and spending the greater part of their lives on the wing – they can even sleep and mate in flight. They are cavity-nesting birds that seek holes in trees and buildings, and spaces in roofs and under eaves. However, as older buildings and barns are lost, the new homes that replace them are so airtight and energy efficient that swifts have nowhere to build their nests and breed. This means swifts are struggling to maintain colonies in the UK (some of which may have existed in the same locality for hundreds of years), and it is increasingly difficult for new colonies to establish. Sadly, the Labour government recently blocked a planning bill which had included an amendment asking developers of new homes to provide a ‘swift brick’ to support cavity-nesting birds, a small provision costing only £30 per brick that could have had a significant impact on swifts’ current plight.
Swift Awareness Week sees a nationwide push to widen understanding of swifts’ lifecycles and how they are impacts by human activity, aiming to get more and more people involved in swift conservation. The GSABP team invited journalist Lori Carnochan to the Biosphere Community of Moniaive which has a long established swift colony and local residents supporting the S.O.S campaign by identifying and allocating sites for swift boxes to be installed. The process includes using ‘swift callers’, tiny ‘whistles’ that replicate the fast, twittering series of high-pitched notes with which swifts communicate, which have been celebrated as a signal of summer since time immemorial. Read Lori’s piece on S.O.S for BBC Scotland News here: Prisoners’ bird boxes aim to aid struggling swifts.
Once the breeding season is over, in late July/early August, swifts will leave the UNESCO Biosphere on their 7,000-mile journey back to their African wintering grounds (their annual migration is one of the longest undertaken by any bird) but the GSA Biosphere Partnership and local colleagues will continue the S.O.S campaign in preparation for their return next year. We are still actively looking for sites with good potential for swift boxes, and are especially keen to hear from individuals or groups that can assist with installation (expertise and equipment is required). We are encouraging use of iNaturalist, iRecord and SwiftMapper as all data collected will help us target our work. The D&G Swift Network will be happy to assist with individual enquiries about acquiring/hosting swift boxes and can be contacted via dandgswifts@gmail.com.
For the GSA Biosphere Partnership Save Our Swifts is led by Nature Recovery Officer Antoine Lemaire who can be contacted via antoine@gsabiosphere.org.uk. Follow us on social media to keep up to date with S.O.S events including upcoming swift ID workshops: Facebook and Instagram.
Please keep recording sightings of swifts, and if you are looking for advice on how to get started with iNaturalist, take a look at this tutorial video on our YouTube channel.
Further reading/watching:
Activist Hannah Bourne Taylor runs The Feather Speech campaign for swifts.
How to identify and help your local swifts with information and resources from the RSPB.
