Summer has truly dawned when our swifts arrive and, on June 7, these avian Spitfires will be celebrated in World Swift Day, with nest-site walks from Kazakhstan to Spain. From June 28 – July 6, Swift Awareness Week UK will see events highlighting the extraordinary life cycle of these birds, which spend the vast majority of their time in the air. Nest-box footage shows young swifts doing press-ups: once fledged, they will not alight again for three years.
Yet the species is in dire straits. Swifts are dependent on crevices in buildings, now too often filled in, for their nests. A simple solution is a swift brick — widely adopted in Gibraltar with uplifting results — yet the efforts of campaigners to mandate swift bricks in new homes here were recently frustrated again with the rejection of an amendment to the planning bill.
‘It is gut-wrenching,’ says Hannah Bourne-Taylor, author of Nature Needs You. ‘Without swift bricks, birds reliant on our buildings to breed can’t stabilise their populations. We must lobby our MPs: the more people join the fight, the better chance our swifts have.’
Labour MP Barry Gardiner is urging his party to rethink: ‘Who has not marvelled at the liquidity of swifts on a summer evening? How doltish, how insensible to beauty and life must our ministers be, to block the simplest of legislative amendments that would provide the basic habitat to stop these incomparable creatures facing oblivion. When even the Home Builders Federation declares that swift bricks, which provide a home for eight species of cavity-nesting birds, pose no block to the Government’s targets, it is clear that the biggest cavities are in the hearts and skulls of politicians.’
‘Labour backed my amendment in opposition and it makes no sense at all for them to now whip against it,’ adds Zac Goldsmith. ‘If Labour rejects even this simple and painless measure, what hope is there for the rest of our rapidly declining Nature?’
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Sophia Money-Coutts: When is a thank you letter still mandatory and when will a voice note (under a minute, please!) sufficeSophia Money-Coutts is the new Debrett's and she's here every Wednesday to set some modern etiquette wrongs, right.
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Prussia Cove: Shrouded in mystery and romance, this former smugglers' paradise is an isolated idyllCome for the history, stay for the swimming and walking.
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'We need to make a case for more resources': What next for wild camping on DartmoorJane Wheatley takes the temperature of the land after years of debate over public access to private spaces.
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From Scotland to Greenland, Earth Photo 2025's shortlisted works showcase our amazing planetThe 203 photographs and films will tour more than 20 Forestry England sites, National Trust properties and other historic houses from next month until spring 2026.
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Gwithian Towans: A golden sand beach that stretches along the eastern curve of St Ives BayNear the north-eastern extremity of the bay, Gwithian Towans in Cornwall abuts the cove of Godrevy — said to have inspired Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.
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Nanjizal Beach lets you experience a very different Cornwall to headline-hogging Land's EndThe beach — which is also known as Mill Bay — sits about half an hour’s walk south of Land’s End, though the two couldn't be more different.
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Mawgan Creek: The unspoilt antidote to some of Cornwall's busier cornersThe creek feeds into the Helford river and is a short distance from Frenchman’s Creek, known best because of Daphne du Maurier’s 1941 novel of the same name.
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Dollar Cove's name gets it all wrong — it's a Cornwall beach that's worth a millionBen Lerwill takes a look at the West Country beach which has a rich history.
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The breathtaking Cornish cove that's 'like something from a fantasy'Ben Lerwill takes a look at Kynance Cove, the 'scenic highlight of the Lizard Peninsula'.
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Sir David Attenborough’s record-breaking Nature documentary reveals the devastating effects of bottom trawling on our oceansBottom trawling is a disaster for fish stocks, but it also releases previously stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
