Nesting swifts at risk from DIY work on old homes

A NATIONWIDE survey of nesting swifts has revealed they favour old houses – putting the declining species at risk from improvement work to homes.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds collected reports of more than 3,400 swift nesting sites and found more than three quarters were on houses.

Their strongholds are in the older parts of towns, cities and villages, with more than half the homes they nest in built before 1919 and a quarter dating from 1919 to 1944.

More than half the sites had been known nesting places for swifts for more than ten years, and around one in six spots was under threat, the RSPB said.

The charity believes that householders, business owners, builders and developers all have an important role to play in preserving sites for the bird, which has suffered declines of almost a third in ten years.

It is not known why the migratory bird is declining in numbers, although the RSPB is concerned many swifts, which tend to be faithful to a nest site, are suffering as a result of the loss of nesting opportunities through building work or demolition.