Swift populations have been declining rapidly in the UK in recent years. This might be partly due to less food, but it’s more likely due to the loss of nooks and crannies in our housing stock, which now form their main nesting opportunities. Modern building methods and alterations seal up our roofs to insulate them. Consequently, closing up available gaps and holes restricts their chances of breeding faster than their natural losses in our climate, creating a slow demise in many areas.
Since I have lived in Hythe, I have never really noticed swifts specifically before. Have you? But they are here, and if you have seen a solitary bird like me, I just thought it’s a swallow and carried on with my day. I remember my schooldays watching swallows line up on the telegraph wires, and sometimes seeing some martins flying up to a mud cup attached to the outside of a barn. But I never knowingly saw a swift in the countryside or even how they fitted into our natural society.
My own swift journey started almost by accident. A friend moved into a new house that already had boxes installed. I saw the boxes being used during a passing visit in May 2025, and I thought it was just a one off bird enthusiast’s hobby. I read a little about swifts and realised how important they are to have around and that many groups have started up all over the country to support them. So I went to some other places while touring around the country and started to see them in other towns. I couldn’t wait to get home. I wanted to see if there were any in Hythe!
So, last summer, I started looking for any local swifts, not knowing that I would even find any. I had no idea where to look, other than up! It took a while, but once I saw my first one, I knew we could be onto something.
By the height of summer I was starting to work out their main activity centre. I saw a group of about 40 swifts all at once high up over Hythe just prior to their migration, and often saw 10 or more together in groups around the town once I knew what I was looking for. You may have seen them too, so they are definitely in residence here to some degree and have probably been here for many hundreds of years, if not longer. It may have been a fairly good year for them too as the weather from May to July was pretty good. We just don’t know the full extent of their local occupation or trends at this stage.
I found two nest sites by watching them carefully, and even managed to attract some over to my own garden. That was the key moment – being able to control something that totally ignores humans! More on that later.
They eat live insects, picked fresh from the sky, so you simply can’t feed them like other birds. You might think there’s nothing you can do to bring them into your garden. But you couldn’t be further from the truth!
This has inspired me into helping them more if possible. I’ll be transparent here – I’m not a keen birdwatcher. I feed the garden birds and they nest in the hedge, but without being rude to our bird lovers, swifts transcend those ideas, and they will capture your interest regardless of your affinity with other birds. I think there is something in us all that admires their sense of ultimate freedom, their joyous nature, travel to far away places, their close proximity to humans and their family life. Although they are wild and can’t be tamed, the fact that they could be living discretely in your house makes them personable. These characteristics seem to connect with us at a much deeper level. And that connection is available right on your own doorstep. Or even just outside your bedroom window if you are lucky!
