The summer of ’24; the year we learned about swifts and their New Mills homes

Swifts mate for life and call their nesting spot ‘home’ for life too.

Something gives them the ability to fly above the African continent for 9 months of the year, then return to the Northern Hemisphere to the same crevice behind dislodged mortar in a roof line, to their own personal safe space to raise their young year after year. Miraculous when you think about it. New Mills has swifts! New Mills has a couple of colonies of swifts, we are so fortunate that some swifts have their own magical sat nav set to here.

When I see swifts swirling and curling in the sky above the Torrs, or feel them dart past me on a homeward curve of flight to nest, my heart beats faster.
I feel joyous, the birds as old as the dinosaurs are in our midsts. That’s why I spend time trying to understand and help ‘our’ swifts.

Imagine a summer of silence with no soaring swifts? I don’t want to even try.

So what’s the craic? In three short months, May to the end of July (give or take a few days here and there), mating, egg-laying, hatching, growing and finally fledging is all done and dusted in their summer stay. But it’s no holiday. Both parents gather air-born insects (sometimes for 22 hours a day in high summer), then there’s the job of keeping the chicks warm with their own body heat before the feathers develop. There’s plenty that can go wrong. Poor weather means less insects, low temperatures means more time needed on the nest. Chicks can die.

People say ‘there are fewer than last year’ and they’re right. Numbers are declining and we now have half the population, yes 50% less, than the 90s. They need our help. Why are numbers down? No one knows exactly. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that more pesticide use in farming, plus less areas of wild nature where insects can proliferate, means their food supply is dwindling.

Let’s look at the places swifts live. They nest in buildings. They don’t need much, just enough space in a void under a roof line or a crevice behind bricks. As we neaten, insulate and renovate, these spaces disappear. It’s an absolutely heart-breaking sight, returning adult swifts, causing themselves physical damage, so high is their drive to access a now unavailable nest space.

So knowing where they nest is the key. But how do you follow a species known for its aerial mastery? Timing, and an insight in their behaviour, gives us clues. When swifts group together at dusk, and fly a top speed around buildings with their piercing call, it’s always near nest sites. One by one the adults will peel off and disappear in to their nests. If you blink you miss it. Sometimes if you don’t blink, it’s all happened so fast, you can’t quite believe what you’ve seen anyway. Sometimes though you’re certain.

I’ve spent many hours observing around New Mills.

We’ve known for a couple of years they’ve been nesting under the roofline of the Art Theatre. Screaming parties over Sainsbury’s in Torr Top Street revealed another piece of the jigsaw, four nests in the roofline above ‘Last Wishes’ on Market St. We’ve got a nest behind the brickwork at Torr Vale Mill, one in the roofline of the old Adult Education Building on Spring Bank. A couple of houses are lucky enough to have them too. Where I’ve only found one nest in an area, chances are there are more, I’ve just not found them. Some nest sites are unthreatened, other ones are in danger. Awareness helps us plan for change as best we can.

Get this, another amazing swift fact, the young birds that leave New Mills for the first time will fly around without landing for maybe three or four years. When they’re mature enough to think about settling down they’ll prospect for their home ready for the following year. Swifts are happiest when they’re nesting near other swifts. So if we can plan nest boxes near existing nest sites we’ll have a readymade home available for them. Having seen juveniles prospecting for voids under the roofline at the Art Theatre this year, where all the existing voids are occupied, plans are underway to install boxes ready for the youngsters’ return.

New Mills Town Council have agreed the use of our magnificent Town Hall to host boxes. This will be a linking space for the former Adult Education Centre birds and the Market Street colony. I’ll be keeping a watching eye on the proposals for the Adult Ed building as it takes on its new role in the town, lobbying for the inclusion of nest boxes, or swift bricks or both.

Do you fancy swift surveying? Get in touch if you do. Its like panning for gold, you spend a lot of time looking and then you win big!