Swifts’ numbers declining here and in Britain

THE sight and sound of swifts in the sky, scything through the air and screaming, is an icon of summer.

And because swifts in Ireland nest almost exclusively in tall buildings they tend to be around people and to get noticed.

But in recent years I have noticed them less and less and I became uneasy about this. Then the other day I read a report just issued by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that said that in Britain the number of swifts had declined by a massive 47% since 1994. The British breeding population is now down to 50,000 pairs and they have been declared an endangered species.