They are known as the birds that never land.
Now in the home town of the author who created the world inhabited by Peter Pan, new efforts are being made to ensure a fairytale future for the winged visitors who provide Kirriemuir’s summer soundtrack.
The Angus burgh is home to a nationally-important colony of swifts, but a programme to enhance the built heritage of the Wee Red Town is putting the birds’ regular nesting sites under threat.
Restoration of historically-important buildings under the £1 million-plus Kirriemuir Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS) has led to nesting holes being filled in as stonework is repointed.
But a partnership project has delivered new nest box homes for the swifts, and those behind the scheme are calling on the community to get involved in looking out for the aerial acrobats that summer in Angus from Africa.
Fergus Cook of the Kirriemuir Swift Conservation project, a partnership between Angus Environment Trust and Tayside Biodiversity Partnership, said: “Swifts are remarkable in a number of ways.
“One of the most obvious and apt for Kirriemuir, birthplace of JM Barrie is that they give new meaning to the name Neverland.
“Swifts don’t land except to nest and they don’t breed until they are three or four years old, so for the first three years of their life at least, they never land.
“They are faithful to their partners and to their nest sites for the 10 years or so of their breeding life.
“The Kirriemuir Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme is providing funding for projects that improve buildings in the town’s conservation area.
“This is excellent news for the town, but without knowledge of where the existing swift nests are, it has the potential to be bad news for swifts as holes get blocked up and long-used swift nest sites are lost.
“To date we have lost 62% of our Scottish swift population and areas in many towns across the country are falling silent.”
Fergus added: “We are lucky to have them and should do all we can to look after them.”