Zurich buildings home to 1,859 breeding sites for birds

Swifts, house martins and related bird species are fond of breeding under building alcoves and roofs. Keystone-SDA

Common and Alpine swifts, barn swallows, and house martins: volunteers have documented hundreds of breeding sites for such birds in the city of Zurich.

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A total of 1,859 such sites are now registered in the city. Common swifts are the most widespread species, at 1,176 breeding pairs, authorities said on Friday. Alpine swifts and house martins have 190 pairs each. Barn swallows, jackdaws and kestrels are less common.

Several dozen pairs nest at each of the breeding sites, making them sorts of colonies, according to a press release by the city. However, not all sites are occupied; for only 712 can it be said for certain.

Some sites had already been registered previously. But volunteers found more between 2023 and 2025: 354 for common swifts, 24 for alpine swifts, 15 for house martins and 23 for barn swallows.

New online reporting platform

Private individuals can now also enter their observations online on a new reporting platform. The data from the reporting platform is periodically fed into the city’s inventory of such buildings, and helps authorities to plan targeted protection measures for endangered breeding sites.

Landowners are legally obliged to protect such breeding and nesting sites on buildings and to take them into account in construction projects.

Endangered species

Numbers of swifts, barn swallows and house martins have recently been declining in Switzerland. The Birdlife organisation recently cited the lack of nesting niches on buildings as well as insects in urban areas as the reason for the downturn.

Zurich has noted similar trends. All building nesting species now discovered would be considered potentially endangered. Their breeding and nesting sites are often lost during renovation or construction work. Swifts breed in small crevices behind roofs, facades or under guttering – usually out of sight. The populations recorded in the building breeding bird inventory therefore only represent minimum values.

Adapted from French by AI/dos

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