– from Kathleen Rigg –
How many Swift nests would you estimate there to be in Tideswell?
Do you ever wonder where they nest and why they only visit the UK for around three months of the year – also where are they for the other nine months?
I have always loved watching birds, but particularly love observing Swifts, Swallows and House Martins due to their amazing aerial acrobatics.
Discovering Swifts are now on the UK endangered Red List, with rapidly declining numbers, I mounted a Swift box on my house in 2023. The following year I added a second Swift box and Swift caller to attract some of the 20-40 Swifts regularly seen wheeling & screeching over Parke Lane and Sherwood Road house tops.
In 2020, Tideswell & District Environment Group also obtained funding to enable around twenty local residents to fix new Swift boxes to their homes. We are now beginning to see some of those boxes taken up by new nesting pairs.
In June 2024 I started searching for more nesting Swifts in Tideswell, curious to find out more. It’s a great pastime tracking down the Swifts, on sunny summer evenings, as they enter/exit their nests tucked in the house eaves. They use holes under the roof tiles which look far too small for their beautiful, sweeping wings to fit – wriggling their bottoms as they crawl up the wall into the hole and find their nest again. By the end of July 2024 I had identified fifteen nests all within ½ mile of my house entering their nests very quietly & quickly at high speed.
Swifts spend most of their lives on the wing, eating, sleeping & mating – only landing to build a nest and raise their young. After spending most of the year in Africa, they return to the UK to the exact nest they raised chicks in the previous year. They can live for 6 – 20 years, only breeding for the first time when three years old. This means once the young Swifts leave their nest, they do not land for 2-3 years until they find a mate and a nesting site to raise young.
They are also extremely faithful to the same nesting site. Unfortunately, many active sites can be damaged by building work or home improvements, particularly when residents are unaware of the location of nests. If a Swift pair returns to their old home, only to find a nest hole blocked, they may sadly perish whilst trying in vain to get into the old hole. So we need to know where our Swifts are nesting, so we can let residents know and also encourage them to enjoy the amazing neighbours sharing their home!
In 2025 the Tideswell Swifts returned in early May and I was amazed to quickly find 13 nests before first of June, including 8 new ones. Shortly after this TDEG setup a new “Tidsa Swift Tracker” group with the support of the Derbyshire Dales Swift Conservation project which has received funding to document, promote, support and protect Swift nests across our area.
An evening Swift walk organised mid-June introduced the new Tidsa Swift tracker volunteers to seven local Tidsa Swifts on an excellent circular walk from Fountain Square, Sunnybank Lane, Sherwood Road & Parke Road. I couldn’t have asked for a better display for the new volunteers of how to find and locate Swift nests.
By end July 2025 the new group has been out completing around 20 surveys identifying 28 nests in Tideswell. I am certain more will be found in 2026 when the Swifts return to Tideswell end April 2026.
If you would like to join Tidsa Swift Trackers group and help us to survey & find new Swift nests in Tideswell, please contact myself or Lynn Crowe.
If you are interested in purchasing a Swift nest box, please email me. I already have two houses interested and am thinking to co-ordinate someone to mount the new boxes one day this autumn.
For more info about Swifts see the following links:
- About Us – Derbyshire Swift Conservation
- Swift Conservation Homepage
- Wild About High Fliers – booklet about Swifts, House Martins and Swallows, and how you can help them. Produced by the Wildlife Trusts
Kathleen Rigg
Email – Kathleen.rigg@btinternet.com
Telephone – 07768-961971
