The Feather Speech campaign for swifts

This animated film, A Swift Story, tells the story of swifts’ remarkable lives, their plight, and one special brick that can help safeguard them and other cavity nesting birds, from becoming nationally extinct in Britain. This animation was created by The Why Agency. 

Lord Zac Goldsmith and Hannah Bourne-Taylor on their way to a meeting in the Home Office,

5th Feb 2024

What are swift bricks?

Zero maintenance and sustainable, swift bricks are bricks that sit flush to the wall that provide a cavity nesting habitat for swifts and other cavity nesting birds. Surveys show species include House martins, starlings, House sparrows, nuthatch, blue tit, coal tit and wren.

Why swift bricks are urgently and uniquely essential

Without swift bricks there is no guaranteed nesting habitat for birds reliant on building cavities anywhere in the UK – and there never will be. We are inadvertently destroying their oldcavity nesting sites through renovation, demolition and insulation, while climate mitigation measures mean modern buildings will never provide natural homes for birds.

Swifts bricks are distinct in their urgent necessity – unlike other biodiversity measures that are supportive, like hedgehog holes and bee bricks, swift bricks provide essential nesting habitat and are fundamental to their existence.

As a result, scientific and conservation experts are fully behind my campaign including Natural England and Wildlife and Countryside Link – the brilliant organisation that is a coalition of 82 conservation UK NGOs – have urged Michael Gove to act. While insect decline is a huge factor for wildlife and insect-eating birds such as swifts, without nesting habitat hey cannot breed and cannot exist in Britain. They need food and shelter, and this campaign focuses on shelter.

Gibraltar, when faced with the same rapid declines and nesting habitat issues, installed swift bricks on an industry-wide level. They have stabilised their swifts.

In June 2024, The Netherlands will implement exactly what our proposal is to our government – a swift brick requirement to Building Regulations. This route is the most efficient and effective route for industry-wide installation because it deals with builds about to go into their construction phase (not plans that could take years to build) and it covers direct mitigation for loss of natural nesting sites too.  When only 9 out of 450 Local Planning Authorities have implemented swift brick planning conditions and Local Plans are on a five year review cycle, local government, contrary to the government’s fob off, will not be able to implement the change quick enough in relation to the rapid decline and low base-line population of swifts. If we want to save our swifts, the government needs to mandate swift bricks. Now.

Why I decided to create The Feather Speech campaign

Swifts are as old as the Rocky Mountains, evolving seven epochs ago. For 60 million years they’ve reigned the skies. Each year they fly for around 6,500 hours nonstop, yet when they come home, they come home to us, to their traditional nesting cavities in our houses. The British Trust for Ornithology estimates their breeding population is fewer than 45,000 pairs. By 2025, fewer than 40,000 pairs will remain. They are in rapid decline, their breeding population plummeting 62% between 1995-2020. Other cavity nesting species are endangered too. So I decided to act on their behalf, creating a campaign asking the government to mandate “swift bricks” in new builds.

I’ve played by government rules, collecting the necessary 100,000 signatures in six months during 2023 for my petition to table a parliamentary debate – for which politicians were unanimous in their support. The government said no. Zac Goldsmith, as a life peer, tabled a swift brick amendment in the first attempt in British history to safeguard swifts, birds we love so much we’ve dubbed them our “icons of summer”. Lord Goldsmith’s amendment got cross-party whip support in September 2023. The government said no. We managed to get a meeting with Secretary of State, Michael Gove, who invited us to a second meeting. We met the minister for housing and members of the housebuilding lobby groups, allowing the industry to raise concerns. There were no objections. That was in early February 2024. Despite no barriers stopping Michael Gove greenlighting the proposal already drafted (a swift brick requirement in building regulations isn’t even radical since other countries have done it), we are still waiting. The rumour, from a reliable source, is that our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak is blocking the campaign. Why he is, is unclear and currently the government has not officially made a decision.

For my campaign – for swifts – I have walked through London naked, twice. First to launch the petition (how else would a nobody reach the almost impossible target?) and secondly to the meeting at the Home Office, with Zac Goldsmith by my side in an unprecedented show of alliance, to remind the government that swifts’ existence is at stake.

The conservation world, including the government’s own environmental advisors Natural England, supports our proposal. So do the many politicians who are championing swifts. So why does the government not want to stop the sky from falling down? After all, swift bricks don’t just safeguard swifts and other endangered species, they preserve our most accessible touch point to nature: urban birds. Birds boost our moods, connect generations, give us doses of joy and the invaluable gift of pulling us into the moment. Is the lack of government action apathy or ignorance? Is some bird-phobic bureaucrat misunderstanding the distinct and urgent need to mandate swift bricks? This is not just another biodiversity boost but an essential measure for saving swifts from extinction.

I feel like I am on my hands and knees searching for hope. Worse, I have recurring dreams about Michael Gove. Why the hell am I – a writer turned accidental campaigner – doing this? Because my heart is made of feathers. Two birds redefined my life while living in the rural Africa, (immortalised in my nature memoir Fledgling): a finch who spent hours weaving nests out of my hair, earnestly attacking the mole on my face and demanding the smallest of strokes under his tiny chin before rejoining his flock. And a swift, a fallen feathered star who I hunted insects for. I’m galvanised by an incorruptible loyalty to birds, knowing that 43 per cent of UK birds are threatened with extinction, but these birds who share our walls – our very closest wild neighbours – are the ones we can help save with a simple brick. Caring has become my most functional asset because it conjured the instinct to protect. It also triggered passion.

Passion is a word that has crept into daily vocabulary, describing people’s enthusiasm for anything from frothy coffee to power walking, but the definition of the word is “strong and barely controllable emotion”. From the Latin pati meaning “to suffer”, it is also defined as “a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards, or compelling desire for someone or something”. Since the Bible it has been traditionally used to cement the idea that if you love something enough you will do anything for it even if that causes you pain or anguish. Its meaning feels, regardless of religious views, like the epitome of faith. What is rooted in this word is the essence of standing up for what you believe in and actually doing something. My campaign motto is Passion is a Superpower and we all have the opportunity to prove this is true. Write to Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove and your own MP and local MP candidates, asking them to save swifts. When the general election comes, we have the power to turn swift bricks into a vote determinator for iconic birds whose existence is at stake.

How to help swifts and other cavity nesting birds

Follow me on social media for updates @WriterHannahBT

If you love swifts too and want to help them there are lots of ways to do so:

  • write to your MP – copy and paste info above if you want to. All the facts are accurate.
  • install swift bricks or wooden external boxes (the latter for existing walls is easier) – lots of options on the market. S Brick from Action for swifts is great: S Brick (actionforswifts.com)

Peak Boxes have a good reputation : Peak Boxes (or if you want to make your own cavity for swifts then check out my ‘resources’ page and scroll to the bottom.)

  • create a local swift group (you can do it by yourself if you want!) – the Swift Local Network is full of local groups so you can get advice and support from everyone