People in Crossgates, Leeds turned out in force at the weekend (Sunday 10 May) to welcome Swifts back to the city after a long migration from Africa to nest in the UK. The Leeds Swifts Homecoming Parade set off from Crossgates Community Centre in bright sunshine led by Bare Brass Band and Dave, the amazing unicycling Swift. There was even a live Swift fly past to start proceedings. The parade, the only one of its kind to take place in the city, was the brainchild of super Lee

It's exciting to be writing this newsletter at the start of another Swift season, let's hope it's as good as the one we enjoyed last year. Our Swifts are well and truly on their way back with large numbers recorded a few weeks ago flying northwards over the Pyrenees and reports of individuals increasingly being sighted now in the UK, the first ones being spotted as early as the 7 April in the south of the country. And in exciting news for us, Martin welcomed his first Swift b

Merry Christmas! Well, what a year 2025 has turned out to be for us and our Swifts. We enjoyed the best summer we’d had for many years in terms of breeding numbers, which was so good to report, especially after such a bad year in 2024. Appearing on BBC1’s Hamza’s Hidden Wild Isles this autumn was a massive boost not only to our work but to raising interest in Swift conservation across the country, which is amazing. By now our Swifts will have arrived in Equatorial and souther

Greetings Swift lovers! Wow, what a summer we’ve had! And a record-breaking one too - on two accounts. Firstly, our Gledhow colony celebrated its best ever year thanks to as near a perfect breeding season as we are likely to get. A record 38 breeding pairs (up from 33 in 2024) laid around 95 eggs, resulting in 78 chicks fledging. And if we include three foster chicks that were successfully fledged too then we had a record 81 new Swifts in the air this year. Read on for more

We need your help to make Swift bricks mandatory in all new buildings in the Leeds City Council area. Following the last consultation,...

We’re celebrating Swift Awareness Week with our popular Swift Watching events at our showcase Gledhow Colony. There’s still a few spaces...

Swillington Village Hall, 8th May, 1900-2030 Join us for an exciting journey through the fascinating world of swifts! A Year in the Life...

Join us for an exciting journey through the fascinating world of swifts! A Year in the Life of a Swift will take you on a whirlwind...

Look North recently did a fantastic feature on our endangered Swifts and spoke to Martin and Linda from Leeds Swifts. You can watch the...

At the start of the Swift season, our amazing Swift Homecoming Parades were organized by our super volunteer, Helen Lucy, along with a...

This is our new website for Leeds Swifts. Our Swift conservation work and our advocacy work is growing rapidly, so we've created a new...