Hampshire Swifts are working with Gill Smallman of Natural Basingstoke and with the Birds on the Brink (BOTB) charity and others to promote the Basingstoke ‘Swift Streets’ campaign. The plan is to achieve a measurable increase in the population of Swifts and House Martins in the borough of Basingstoke and Deane, through installation of Swift boxes, Swift bricks and House Martin nest cups to create new nesting sites for our co-habiting urban birds. I had a lovely walk in the s

You can read the last blog that I did in January 2024 on the progress of the Bishops Waltham Swift colony here . That covered the years up to 2023; and in 2024 numbers remained fairly static to the previous year with a small decline from 91 to 88 in the number of chicks reared. This was put down to the weather patterns in the early half of the season, which led to cold overnight temperatures and mornings up to the middle of June which meant that fewer insects were flying, mak