Members of the Goathland Nature Group gathered on a warm and sunny July evening to count swifts at different locations across the Parish.
Swift Count: How we did it
The swift count in Goathland Parish took place on Thursday 9 July 2026 between 6.45pm and 7.15pm.
Participants were asked to record any swifts they saw in their patch on the recording sheet including location seen, count and any notes.
The Parish was split into six zones:
-
- Beck hole road – Oakfield Avenue to the fire station
- Goathland Hotel / Reading room area
- Goathland church / Mallyan Hotel area
- Darnholme
- Beck Hole
- Sadler House area
How many swifts did we see?
In total, we recorded 123 Swift sightings.
There will be some duplicate sightings but based on the maximum number of birds seen by all participants, we’re confident that a minimum count would be 41 birds.
Swift counts per location:
-
- 7 Beckhole Road
- 4 near Goathland Fire Station
- 6 near the Goathland Hotel
- 8 Goathland Church
- 15 at Darnholme
- 1 in Beckhole
Swift boxes
More generally, we have had an increasing number of reports of swift activities around the newly placed swift boxes in the village.
This has included sightings of swifts landing on one box to take a look inside on multiple occasions – these birds will earmark a location to return to for next years’ nest (and subsequent years), so we’re hopeful we may have some nesting next year.
Watch the video below to see a group of six swifts charging and screaming another of our boxes within the village:
A Swift summary!
Overall, it was a very successful and interesting survey. We saw large numbers of swifts, with plenty of activity around our newly-installed boxes.
We’ve also had a number of sighting reports suggesting that the swift callers we’ve installed with some boxes are working really well to attract and alert nearby swifts to potential nesting locations.
Thanks everyone for taking part.
Visit our Goathland Swifts project page to read more about our Swift Project.
If you would like to become a member of Goathland Nature to support the group’s activities, learn more or even take part in events such as this, visit our Become A Member page to find out more.