Common swift numbers have declined significantly across the UK. Protecting their welfare requires preserving nesting access in older buildings and ensuring foraging habitat quality.
Swift welfare is closely tied to breeding success - swifts that lose their nesting sites cannot simply find alternatives. They return from Africa to find their traditional cavity sealed and must either abandon breeding or search desperately for alternatives. Failed breeding attempts waste the enormous physiological investment of the trans-Saharan migration. Individual swifts that lose nest sites may never breed again. The welfare case for preserving and creating swift nesting sites is therefore urgent - these are long-lived birds (up to 21 years) that should contribute many successful breeding seasons if their nest sites are protected.