−−− BY LINDA JENKINSON −−−
July was already a very challenging month for me, then the sun shone and it got much more difficult. While many of us were rushing to the coast and listening for the ice cream van, my phone was ringing non-stop from 7am to 11pm about grounded swift chicks that had fallen out of their nest under eaves all over the UK, to escape the heat.
What has been amazing is the commitment shown by so many people to get their swift to a carer. Our network has pulled together to make sure that we can match a grounded chick to a rehabber in their area and some people have opted to take on the responsibility themselves.
My spare bedroom, the Leeds Swifts Sanctuary, became the home to 26 grounded chicks of various ages. Among the chicks were 3 house martins and a swallow, all in need of special care. Swifts, swallows and martins need to be fed an insect diet to enable them to develop correctly for a life on the wing. Thankfully it’s not too hard to obtain what they need but we do hear horror stories of birds being fed mincemeat or cat food and they suffer terrible deformities as a result. The only outcome for those birds is that they end their life at the vets. Chicks also get injured as people wrongly decide to throw them into the air to ‘launch’ them. Virtually every single grounded chick will be too young to fledge and in poor health.
Most of the birds that arrive are in need of rehydration and some are critically dehydrated. A few never make it through the first night with a carer but most are successfully rehabilitated and fledged into the wild. It’s a very intensive but rewarding experience to be able to set a bird free, a bird that would certainly have perished without help.
Swifts number in the UK are declining dramatically. They make their nest under roofs or in small crevices in buildings and are faithful to their colony. More and more houses and old buildings are being reroofed, refurbished or demolished and each year there are fewer nest sites remaining.
Thankfully, as numbers of swifts decline, the population of swift conservationists is rising. Our work involves advising people about how to work on their houses and still provide a space for swifts, putting up swift boxes to create new colonies, and providing swift awareness events.
If you would like to help us to save swifts from becoming an extinct breeding bird in Yorkshire then please get in touch with us here at Leeds Swifts. We need lots of help to turn this population decline around and make urbanisation work for this species. There’s lot of ways you can help us from lobbying to providing a cherrypicker, making boxes to counting colonies.
Keep up to date with our showcase colony on our Leeds Swifts Facebook page or sign up to our newsletter by emailing
leeds.swifts@gmail.com.
Linda Jenkinson teaches people about birds in and around Leeds. For details of indoor and outdoor classes email linda@startbirding.co.uk or call 07778 768719. Visit www.startbirding.co.uk or Start Birding on Facebook and Twitter
