Right about now, swifts will be scything their way through our summer skies. For writer and campaigner, Hannah Bourne-Taylor, who rushes out to greet them on their return, there is no better sight. After spending ‘around 6,500 hours’ on the wing, they slip back into our skies and into the walls of our homes to breed. As Hannah says, ‘…when they come home, they come home to us’.
The joy is somewhat marred by the black cloud of loss hanging over this species: since 1995 these winged wanderers have faced a decline of over 60%. Of course, the reasons behind this decline are multi-faceted: too big and too numerous for one woman to solve. But, Hannah saw an opportunity. By protecting their nesting spaces within our walls, it could mean that future generations of swifts would be safeguarded. And so, the campaign to mandate swift bricks in buildings was fledged. With her fierce affinity for these creatures, and thoughtful, well-researched arguments, these incredible birds have found themselves an equally incredible ally.
You may be aware of Hannah’s campaign: the one that saw her naked, delivering a speech on a soap box at Speakers Corner, before walking to parliament. But how much do you know about the work it took to get there, or the toll that fighting on the frontlines for nature takes? So often we forget that there is a person behind these campaigns. Someone fuelled by a heady combination of passion, frustration, love, hope and despair, who has worked tirelessly for hours to find just the right words to say to just the right person to make them care just enough to listen. While Nature Needs You is most definitely a love-letter to swifts, it is also a how-to-guide to campaigning (there is even a checklist at the end of it, should you feel moved to step up).
You could almost see this book as a field guide to politics. As we follow Hannah’s journey from her initial promise to her village swifts, to her (quite literally) naked declaration in ‘The Feather Speech’, to drinks parties with politicians (accessorising with a swift brick, of course) and beyond, we are given an all-access pass to parliament.
There is a more empathetic aspect woven in as well. We come to see Hannah not just as modern-day Lady Godiva, but as a person who loves birds with every fibre of her being. She shares her fears and uncertainties of whether she will actually be able to save them, the loneliness and weight of such high expectations (having to obtain 100,000 signatures in six months just to get in the door is no small feat), the hurt and the hate she received from others, as well as her boundless heartbreaking love of the natural world that fans the flames.
Hannah’s writing about swifts, birds, and nature in general, is weighted with the intimacy of close observation. She sees the individuality in each bird: the Dunnock who she rescues and raises, the plucky Yellowhammer that catches her eye each morning, and the swift tucked safe in a swift tower with ‘eyes like polished planets’. For her, birds ‘…are the go-betweens, shrinking the boundaries between wild and tame’. Alongside the beauty, however, is brutality. There are hard hitting images of swifts bashing relentlessly against brick walls, desperate to get back to their blocked-up homes after their epic journeys. But Hannah has a handle on this, using it sparingly, and only when she really needs to pack a punch.
Arguably though, one of the book’s most shocking aspects is how much of nature’s future lies in the hands of politicians, and yet how little they are doing about it. The frustration that streaks and shouts its way through the pages is palpable: there were plenty of times I found myself chorusing along, asking aloud: ‘why won’t you just mandate swift bricks already?’
If, ‘passion is a superpower’ then this book is super charged. Nature Needs You is a bold, and desperate plea for us to care about the lives that swoop and scream around us. Share it, gift it, and speak about it because a summer without swifts just does not bear thinking about, does it?