Where can I report swift sightings and nest sites?

Please contact your (closest) member of the Sheffield Swift Network for swift nest sightings. If you don’t have one, email any of the members. All group details can be found here.

Record your sighting of swifts and nests on Swift Mapper if you can. It is a conservation mapping tool – easy and free to use. Anyone can submit records of breeding swifts, building a picture of where they are nesting around the UK. This enables local conservation action for swifts to be focussed in the right places. All records will be available to anyone interested in swifts and their conservation; local authority planners, architects, ecologists, developers, conservation groups and individuals who want to help their local swifts. Mapping breeding swifts helps determine where active nest sites need to be protected, and where new nesting opportunities for swifts would be best provided – the closer new potential nest sites are to existing swift colonies, the greater the chance they will be occupied. In this way, we hope that your records will play an important role in helping to reverse the decline of this charismatic migrant bird.

What records does Swift Mapper collect?

Swift Mapper is a conservation mapping tool. Anyone can submit records of breeding swifts, building a picture of where they are nesting around the UK. This enables local conservation action for swifts to be focussed in the right places. All records will be available to anyone interested in swifts and their conservation; local authority planners, architects, ecologists, developers, conservation groups and individuals who want to help their local swifts.

Swift Mapper records where swifts are nesting. It collects four different types of record:

1. Occupied Nest: where swifts are observed using a nest site cavity.
2. Previously Occupied: where swifts were known to nest previously, but no longer do so.
3. Nest Box: nesting sites deliberately provided for swifts – nest boxes, nest bricks, etc. Whether occupied yet or not.
4. Screaming Party: records of swifts flying at around roof height, often flying fast in groups, and often giving loud screaming calls. This behaviour indicates that swifts are breeding nearby.