Oxford to host England's first 'Swift City'

The RSPB has been granted £83,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to build a new 'Swift City' in Oxford.

Following a similar scheme set up in Belfast in 2013, the two-year project will maintain current Common Swift nesting sites in the city and add 300 further sites onto new and existing buildings in an effort to combat a decline in the species' population in recent years.

The iconic aerial migrant, which lands only to breed and can fly at least 560 miles a day gathering food during the breeding season, nests almost exclusively in urban areas in Britain. However, the bird faces an uncertain future as numbers in the country have fallen by 38 per cent since 1994.

One likely cause of Common Swift's decline may be loss of nesting sites, as old buildings are renovated and new-builds do not allow for appropriate spaces. To address this, the project will research Oxford's present swift populations and nest sites and use this information to work closely with builders and planners to maintain them, and also incorporate new sites into the city's infrastructure.

Oxford has a long scientific and cultural association with Common Swift. The colony nesting at the Oxford University's Natural History Museum has been intensively studied by the Edward Grey Institute of Ornithology since 1948, and is one of the longest continuous studies of a single bird species in the world.

Oxford's human community will be vital to the success of the project. Volunteers will be needed to help monitor swift numbers, while wildflower plots will be planted in green spaces and gardens to increase public awareness of the need to rebuild food-webs across habitats. A showpiece 'swift tower' is planned, that will combine new nest sites with a public arts project.

Common Swift (Photo: Nigel Deacon)

Charlotte Kinnear, local RSPB Conservation Officer, said: "Like much urban wildlife, swifts are under pressure in the UK. HLF funding of this exciting project gives us the opportunity to study swift nesting and feeding habits more closely, and to involve the local community to monitor and protect them. We hope that as well as improving the outlook for swifts, lessons will be learnt which can be applied to species recovery plans for other urban wildlife."

Starting in January 2017, the RSPB will work alongside partners including Oxford University, The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford City Council, Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre, Environment Resources Management and the local Wildlife Trust to improve the breeding prospects of swifts in the city.

Chris Jarvis, Education Officer at The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, said: "We already provide an extensive educational programme for local schools and are very much looking forward to extending this work with the Swift City project. It will also enable us to introduce more children to our resident swifts during the summer."