Comedian Bill joins campaign for swift action

A display highlighting the dramatic decline of swifts and how households can help the “symbol of summer skies” will feature at this year’s Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.

- Emily Beament

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which puts on the annual festival, has teamed up with wildlife charity the RSPB for the first time to create a show garden focused on swifts, supported by comedian Bill Bailey, who hails from Keynsham, near Bath.

Migrating 3,400 miles to Africa and back each year, the birds spend almost all their lives in flight eating, drinking, mating and even sleeping on the wing and depend on healthy insect populations and suitable nesting sites for their breeding season in the UK, conservationists say.

But the species has seen numbers plummet by 68% between 1995 and 2023, and they are “red-listed” over concerns about their survival.