This book is an amazing read about one woman’s (Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s) fight to get swift bricks put into all new build houses. It tells the story of how Hannah’s love for swifts makes her promise to help them, as they are now on the endangered list of birds in trouble in the UK. Hannah’s promise leads her on a journey to battle with building companies and the Government and makes her become a campaigner extraordinaire battling to fulfil her promise to this tiny bird.
The book begins on May Day 2021, with Hannah Bourne-Taylor ‘lie(ing) on her back among the fast-growing blades, the May sun warm on her face for the first time this year’. She is waiting to see the swifts that she loves return; she ‘scans the sky, ears ready to hear their screams’. When she hears them, she cries out herself , ‘Welcome home!!!!’, rejoicing as this 45-gram bird makes its return flight from Africa to Britain to breed.
Swifts are an amazing miracle of nature as once they hatch out and leave the nest they spend the rest of their time in flight – they eat, drink, bathe, breed and sleep all on the wing. They make the long journey every year to southern Africa, crossing the Sahara Desert twice every year, not landing like other birds. They only land to lay their eggs and feed their chicks when they get back to our shores. They build their nests in holes in walls, under the eaves of houses, churches or old buildings. In the past, they built nests in caves and cliff faces and high trees but now, due to those habitats being mainly lost, they look for old buildings. Once the nest has been built the swifts will return to the same site every year.
As Hannah Bourne-Taylor tells us, the problem is that people repair their roofs and replace their soffit boards with plastic ones, which means the nests are dislodged or holes filled in and cannot be re-built. It also means that the returning swifts cannot access their nest any more so fly again and again at the wall searching for last year’s nest, smashing their small bodies against the wall, often until they die trying. This was one of the bits in the book which I found really difficult to read!!
In the book, Hannah shares with the reader her campaigning journey to launch a petition to gain 100,000 signatures which she thinks naively will automatically mean the Government will discuss this in Parliament. She walks through the streets of London, (one of the highlights of the book), dressed only in a painted-on feather costume to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park and makes her ‘Feather speech’ to launch her petition. She gains lots of media attention and then works tirelessly over the next 6 months to get all of the signatures. Having succeeded the Government then hit her with a body blow as they said they would decide whether they would debate the petition or not! I think this is one of her first lessons in how tough campaigning can be!
The debate does go ahead – asking for the Government to pass a law that all new builds include a swift brick so that swifts can access it and make a small nest under the eaves of the house. Unfortunately, the Government decided to say no, they said ‘we should not impose conditions and ensure that planning permission are subject to additional and unreasonable requirements to accommodate species that are not present in an area while creating financial burdens to comply with and to discharge conditions’ bearing in mind the cost of the swift brick to a builder is less than £20.00! Also the swifts won’t be present in an area if there is nowhere for them to nest? Mmm – a shame the Government don’t think about that…
Hannah’s battle continued and is still on-going – with the Government still saying ‘no’ – they say that builders can do this voluntarily and also local county/district councils can ask builders to include the bricks in new builds and can include swift bricks in their local building planning policies. As this is not a law, then every new build in every village or town means someone has to request this…. An on-going battle by an unhelpful Government especially as every builder is going to say ‘no’ as it would cost them more money to implement.
An amazing read – learning about one woman’s sacrifices and battle to make the Government listen. Her journey to become a campaigner and her story ends with lots of information about how you can help or become a champion to protect this tiny 45-gram miracle of nature. It also has information in the book about what a ‘Swift Brick’ is – hopefully lots of builders will read this book and it will make them see the logic in including them in new builds!
Definitely worth reading – enjoy!!
Review by Melanie Wakley
