A thank-you for your swift group volunteers: a photo of the swift box under the eaves as a jigsaw, with your note at the end

Published on October 20, 2026

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any swift group, bird conservation charity, wildlife trust, ornithological society, nature reserve, local council, planning authority, housing association, builder, roofer, school or community organisation. Nothing here is legal, wildlife law, planning, building, working at height, health and safety, ecological survey, employment, safeguarding, copyright or data protection advice; check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, nests, ladders, surveys, homeowners and members' details.

It's a quarter to ten on a warm evening in late June, and a retired bus driver called Alan is sitting on a folding chair at the end of a terraced street, with a notebook on his knee, a pencil behind his ear and his eyes on the roofline. The sky is pale gold over the chimneys. The street is quiet except for a television through an open window and a blackbird somewhere in a garden. Then, from over the church, comes the sound he has been waiting for all day: a thin, high, rising scream, and a moment later a tight group of eight dark, sickle-winged birds tears down the street at roof height, banks round the end house and is gone.

"Screaming party," says Alan, to nobody in particular, and writes it down: 21:47, eight birds, north to south, low.

The swifts arrived in the second week of May, after a journey of thousands of miles from Africa. They have spent almost every moment since then in the air: feeding, drinking, even sleeping on the wing. The only time they touch anything solid is when they come back to the same small hole under the same eaves, year after year, to nest. And those holes are disappearing, as old roofs are mended, gaps are filled and new houses are built without anywhere for a swift to get in.

That is why Alan is here. He is one of about twenty people in the town's swift group, a small band of volunteers who count the screaming parties, map the nest sites, talk to homeowners, and, with the help of a couple of trained installers and a borrowed scaffold tower, have put up nearly two hundred swift boxes on houses, the library, the primary school and the church tower. Three of the boxes have cameras. Last summer, two hundred people in the village hall watched a live picture of a pair of chicks blinking at the lens and cheered as if it were a cup final.

By the first week of August, the swifts will be gone again, and the street will be quieter for nine months. Alan will type up his notebook, the group will meet in the pub to look at the map, and someone will start planning next year's boxes.

If you've ever looked up on a summer evening and heard that scream, you've seen the work of a swift group, even if you didn't know it. This guide is about saying thank you to them, in words first and, if it fits, with a small digital jigsaw made from a photo of a swift box under the eaves, a summer sky over the rooftops or a page of a well-thumbed survey notebook.

Who we mean

Swift groups come in many shapes. Some are a small local group of neighbours who noticed the birds were declining; some are part of a wildlife trust, a bird club, a conservation charity or a town's green network; some work with councils, housing associations, schools and builders to put swift bricks into new homes; and some are one determined person with a ladder-shy friend and a box of leaflets. Almost all depend on volunteers giving their evenings and weekends. You'll usually find:

the surveyors, who sit on folding chairs and walls on summer evenings, count the screaming parties, watch the birds go into the nest holes and fill in the records that tell everyone where the swifts still are;
the box builders, who cut, glue and paint swift boxes in a garage or a community workshop, often from offcuts and donated timber, to designs that keep the birds safe and dry;
the installers, usually a small, trained team, sometimes with professional help, who put the boxes up safely on ladders, towers or scaffolding, at the right height and the right angle, and who know when not to go up;
the homeowner liaison volunteers, who knock on doors, explain what a swift box is, answer the worry about mess, and leave every decision to the person whose house it is;
the nest cam team, who fit the cameras, keep the cables and the screens working and run the live feed at events;
the call playback volunteers, where the group uses them, who play recorded swift calls near new boxes in early summer to help young birds find them, at times and volumes that won't trouble the neighbours;
the talks, schools and events volunteers, who give talks in village halls, run stalls at fêtes, take children on swift walks, and explain why one small hole under a roof can matter so much;
the planning and building volunteers, who read planning applications, talk to architects, builders and roofers, and ask, politely and persistently, for swift bricks in new homes and for nest sites to be kept when roofs are repaired;
the coordinator, the secretary and the treasurer, who keep the map, the records, the box stock, the grant forms and the group together;
the people who started it, who heard the screaming less each year and decided to do something about it.

And behind all of them, the partners and families at home who have learned to live with a garage full of half-painted boxes, dinner at half past nine in June and someone who stops mid-sentence in the garden to look up.

The words matter most

Before anything else, it's worth saying: the thank-you a swift volunteer remembers is the one that tells them exactly what they did and why it mattered. "Thanks for all your work on the swifts" is kind. "Thank you for the box on our gable; we had our first pair this summer, and my dad, who can't get out much any more, watched them every evening from his chair" is the one that gets kept.

If you're not sure what to say, these questions might help:

What did they do that you saw, or that you only found out about later?
What did it make possible: a pair nesting where none had nested before, a school where children now look up, a new estate with swift bricks in every house, a street that still screams in June?
What will you remember about that evening, that roof or that sky because of them?

A few honest sentences, handwritten or typed, are worth more than any present. Everything else in this guide is optional.

Who might send one

A photo jigsaw is not right for everyone, and it doesn't replace a card, a thank-you at the annual meeting or a mention in the group's newsletter. It tends to suit:

a homeowner thanking the group for the box on their house, and the first swifts that used it;
a surveyor thanking the coordinator who taught them to tell a swift from a swallow and a house martin;
a school thanking the volunteers who put up the boxes and gave the assembly;
a committee thanking a long-serving installer, box builder or surveyor who is stepping back;
a neighbour thanking the person who knocked on every door in the street;
a partner or family member who has lived with swifts in the house, the garage and the diary for years.

It's less suited to someone who doesn't use screens at all, or who would feel awkward about a gift. In those cases, a card and a warm word on the pavement at dusk are perfect.

Gifts, nests and good manners

Swift groups work on other people's houses, around wild birds that are protected in many places, and with homeowners, schools and councils, and that brings a few things to keep in mind:

Never disturb a nest for a photo or a gift. Swifts are sensitive to disturbance, and in many countries, nests in use are protected by law. Never go near a nest hole, open a box, shine a light into it, or use a drone or a long pole to get a picture. The best photos are taken from the ground, at a distance, or come from the group's own cameras with their permission.
Leave the ladders to the trained team. Putting up a box means working at height on someone else's wall, often on old brick, slates and gutters. Never climb a ladder, a scaffold tower or a roof for a photo, never ask an installer to pose up there, and never offer to help put up a box unless the group has trained you and asked you to.
Homeowners' privacy comes first. A swift box is on someone's home. Never photograph a house with its number, the street sign, its windows, its garden or its people without the homeowner's clear agreement, and never share which houses have boxes or nests. Many groups keep their nest map private for exactly that reason.
Children and young people: swift groups often work with schools, run swift walks and give talks to children. Never photograph children without the right permission, and don't include them in a gift photo at all, even from behind.
Group money and grants: if you're thinking of a thank-you paid for from the group's funds or a grant, check with the committee first. Grants usually have rules about what they can be spent on, and most groups are careful about anything that looks like a perk.
Paid professionals: some groups pay a professional installer, an ecologist or a scaffolding firm for difficult jobs. Pay their invoices properly and separately; a thank-you is a gift, never a substitute for the agreed fee.
Survey records and locations: the records of where swifts nest are valuable and sometimes sensitive. Keep survey sheets, maps, nest locations and anything that shows a precise address out of any photo.
Evenings and neighbours: surveys happen at dusk on residential streets. Don't gather a crowd, block a pavement, or shine torches at windows to thank someone; a quiet word, or a card the next day, is better.
People's details: keep names, phone numbers, addresses, the homeowners' list, the volunteer rota and the group's email list private. A thank-you shouldn't share anyone's details.

None of this should stop you saying thank you. It just means keeping it simple and kind, and putting the birds and the homeowners first.

When to send it

The swift year has its own natural moments for a thank-you:

when the swifts arrive, in late April or May in much of Europe, and the first screaming party goes over the street;
when a new box is used for the first time, which can take one year, or five, and is always a small miracle;
during a swift awareness week or a summer swift event, where your area has one, or after a talk or a swift walk;
when the swifts leave, usually by early August, and the group sits down to count what the summer brought;
when someone joins the group, retires, steps down or moves away, at whatever time of year that happens.

There's no wrong time to say thank you, but a thank-you that arrives close to the moment it's about tends to land best.

Why a jigsaw can fit

A swift group's work is a jigsaw already. The map is built one sighting at a time, one notebook page at a time, one street at a time, until a picture appears of where the birds still are and where they could be. A box goes up here, a swift brick goes into a new house there, a homeowner says yes, a roofer leaves a gap, and slowly the pieces join up.

So a jigsaw is a small, quiet version of the same pleasure. Putting together a photo of the box under the eaves, the evening sky or the church tower, piece by piece, with real tab-and-blank shapes that click into place, gives the person a few minutes of stillness, a little like a summer evening on a folding chair. And because the note appears when the last piece goes in, the thank-you arrives at the end, as a small surprise, a little like the moment the first swift of the year screams over the roofs.

If you're thanking the surveyors

The surveyors give up their summer evenings to sit still and look up, often for weeks, often seeing nothing, and then suddenly everything. A thank-you for them might be a photo of a folding chair and a flask on a pavement at dusk, a pale evening sky over a row of chimneys, or a page of a notebook with times and tally marks, with any addresses, street names or locations covered, and a note that names something specific: "Thank you for every evening on that wall. Without your notebook, nobody would know they were still here."

If you're thanking the box builders and the installers

The box builders and the installers turn plans into homes. A close-up of a row of freshly painted swift boxes on a workbench, a box on a gable end photographed from the ground with no house number or windows in view, sawdust and a set square in a garage, or a swift brick waiting to go into a new wall, makes a lovely detailed puzzle for them. Never photograph anyone working at height. A note that says what changed is even better: "Thank you for the box on the school. The children named the first pair."

If you're thanking the homeowner and planning volunteers

The people who knock on doors and read planning applications do some of the hardest work in the group: patient conversations, polite letters and a lot of waiting. A photo of a stack of leaflets on a kitchen table, a swift sticker on a front-door window with the number cropped out, or the roofline of a new estate with swift bricks visible from a public road, is a warm image for them, with a note about the door that opened or the plan that changed because of them.

If you're thanking the nest cam and events volunteers

The nest cam team and the talks and events volunteers are the reason so many people have ever seen a swift up close. A photo of the screen in a village hall showing a still from the group's own camera, used with the group's permission, a table set up for a talk with a model swift and a box, or an empty hall with chairs in rows before the doors open, is a cheerful puzzle for them. Never use a nest cam image without the group's agreement, and never one that could identify where the nest is.

If you live with a swift group volunteer

If your partner, parent or friend is the one who eats dinner at half past nine all summer, keeps a ladder-shaped dent in the car roof and stops talking mid-sentence to look up, a puzzle can be a small, private thank-you for all the evenings. A photo of their binoculars and notebook on the windowsill, a half-painted box on the garage bench, or the sky over your own roof at the moment the swifts came back, with a note that says what you've noticed, can mean a lot.

When a long-serving volunteer steps down

When someone who has been at the heart of the group for many years steps back, a bigger puzzle can mark the moment. A 130- or 252-piece puzzle of the church tower against an evening sky, the town's rooftops from a hill, or a row of boxes on a public building where the group has permission, shared with the group so everyone can add a line to the card that goes with it, is a warm way to say goodbye.

In memory of a volunteer

Swifts come back to the same nest year after year, and many groups find that a comfort when someone they loved is no longer there to see it. If a surveyor, a builder or a founder has died and their family would welcome it, a photo of the box they put up, the sky over their street on a summer evening, or their old notebook on a table, can become a gentle puzzle for their family. Always ask the family first, and let them decide whether they'd like it. A quiet note is often enough: "The swifts came back to his box again this year. Thank you."

For swift groups elsewhere

We've used words like "swift group" and "screaming party", but the same idea lives on in many places: swift groups and projects across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; swift and martin projects in towns and cities across Europe, from Scandinavia to Spain and Italy; chimney swift tower projects and evening swift watches in North America, where a different species roosts in chimneys; and swift, swallow and martin volunteers in many other countries where these birds nest in buildings. Each has its own species, its own seasons, its own laws on nests and buildings and its own way of working.

Whatever the name, the roles are similar: someone counts the birds, someone builds the boxes, someone puts them up safely, someone talks to the homeowners and someone keeps the map. The guidance here should work for any of them. Check your own group's rules on photos, nests, ladders, surveys, homeowners and people's details.

The best photos for a swift group thank-you are often the quiet ones, taken from the ground, at a distance, with no people and no addresses in them at all. Some ideas:

a swift box under the eaves, photographed from a public pavement with no house number, windows or garden in view;
a pale evening sky over a row of chimneys or a church tower;
a row of freshly painted boxes on a workbench in a garage or a workshop;
a pair of binoculars and a survey notebook on a windowsill, with any locations covered;
a folding chair and a flask on a pavement at dusk, with no one in it;
a still from the group's own nest camera, used only with their permission.

Things to keep out of the frame:

nests, nest holes and boxes up close, and anything that would mean getting near them;
the birds themselves at the nest, which you should never approach, light or chase with a camera or a drone;
faces, unless the person has agreed;
children and young people, at any time, including school talks and swift walks, even from behind;
anyone working at height, on a ladder, a tower, a scaffold or a roof;
homes, house numbers, street signs, windows, gardens and anything that shows where a box or a nest is;
number plates and anything that identifies someone's car;
survey sheets, nest maps, homeowners' lists, the volunteer rota and the group's email list;
anything that might upset someone, such as a photo of a volunteer who has since died, unless their family has agreed.

If the photo has people in it, ask them first. A photo with no people, no nests and no addresses at all, just the sky, a box from a distance or a notebook, is often the easiest and best choice.

Getting the JPG right

Puzzlify works from a JPG. Most phone photos are already JPGs, or can be saved as one. A few practical tips:

evening skies are beautiful but tricky; tap on the brightest part of the sky to set the exposure and keep the colours, or on the roofline if you want more detail in the bricks;
don't use a flash outdoors at dusk, and never point one at a box, a nest or a window;
a phone's zoom gets grainy at a distance, so it's often better to take a wider shot and crop it later than to zoom in hard;
chimneys, roof tiles, painted boxes, wood grain and a colourful evening sky make wonderful puzzles, because every piece has a little bit of texture;
large areas of plain sky or plain wall are tricky, so crop them or pick fewer pieces;
landscape images usually make the most comfortable puzzles on a phone turned sideways;
if your phone saves photos in another format, such as HEIC, change the camera setting to "most compatible" or export a copy as JPG;
remove location data from the photo before you upload it, which matters especially for swift photos, because it could reveal exactly where a nest or a box is. On most phones, you can switch it off in the share options or the camera settings.

Privacy, an optional PIN, and saying it's from you

The puzzle is private: it's shared as a link, not posted on a public board. You can add an optional PIN so that only someone who knows it can open the puzzle, which is useful if you're sending it to the group's email list. Even so, treat the photo as if it might be forwarded, and keep nests, homes and anyone's details out of it. Puzzlify doesn't use your photos to train AI.

Swift groups and their volunteers get plenty of unexpected messages, from sighting reports to the occasional scam, and many are rightly wary of unexpected links. Say who it's from and what it is in the message itself: "This is a little jigsaw of the sky over our street, with a note at the end. It's from me, and it's safe to open." If you're sending it to someone who doesn't use email much, print the link as a QR code inside a card.

How many pieces?

Pieces	Feels like	Typical time
24	a single swift box on a wall	a few minutes
48	the church tower at sunset	around 5–10 minutes
80	a row of chimneys against the sky	around 10–20 minutes
130	a workbench of freshly painted boxes	around 20–40 minutes
252	the whole town's rooftops from a hill	an hour or more

If you're not sure, 48 or 80 pieces suits most people on a phone. Plain sky gets tricky at high piece counts, so start lower if the image has large areas of one colour.

The leaderboard: only for a group

If you're sending one puzzle to the whole group, the optional leaderboard lets everyone see who finished first. Some groups enjoy the rivalry, a little like the friendly competition over who saw the first swift of the year; others would rather solve it quietly. For a puzzle sent to one person, or after a bereavement, leave it off.

A few note ideas

"To Alan: every evening on that wall, every scream in the notebook. Thank you."
"To the box builders: two hundred boxes, and every one of them square. Thank you."
"To Jo: thank you for knocking on our door. We had our first pair this year."
"To the installers: thank you for doing it safely, and for knowing when not to go up."
"To my wife: thank you for dinner at half past nine, and for showing me how to look up."

(Change the names, and keep anything personal, any address and any nest location out of a puzzle that may be shared.)

How to make one (about a minute of setup)

Upload the photo, pick a piece count, write your note and preview it. When you're happy, publish the link and send it by email or message, print the link or a QR code inside a card, or ask the coordinator to pass it on. Start at Puzzlify's photo puzzle maker.

Honest pricing and notes

Making and previewing a puzzle is free in your browser. You only pay when you publish the link to send it: one credit is EUR 3.99, three credits are EUR 8.99, and Plus is EUR 14.99 a year for ten credits, which can make sense if you want to thank the surveyors, the builders and the installers separately. The person you send it to doesn't need an account or an app; they just open the link in a browser.

This is a digital jigsaw you play on a screen. It isn't a cardboard puzzle in the post, a printed product or a public puzzle board, and it isn't connected to any swift group, charity, trust, council or school. It's also not puzzlify.io (a chess site), Puzzlit, Puzzly or Puzzify, which are different things.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

Honestly, some of the best thank-yous for swift group volunteers cost nothing at all:

a handwritten card, pushed through the door or handed over at the next meeting;
sending in your own sightings, so the map gets a little more complete;
saying yes to a box, if the group thinks your house might suit one, or keeping the gap under your eaves when the roof is repaired;
asking for swift bricks if you're building, extending or reroofing, and telling the group when a nest site might be lost;
going to a talk, a swift walk or a nest cam evening, and bringing a friend;
a tin of good biscuits for the next box-building session, which never fails.

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose a box under the eaves from a distance, the evening sky over the rooftops, a workbench of new boxes or a well-thumbed notebook, keep nests, homes, children, faces, plates and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who sat on the wall with a notebook, cut and painted the boxes, carried the ladder and knew when not to climb it, knocked on every door in the street, read the planning applications and kept the map, so that next May, when the first thin scream comes over the church, there will still be somewhere for the swifts to come home to.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, wildlife law, planning, building, working at height, health and safety, ecological survey, employment, safeguarding, copyright or data protection advice. Check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, nests, ladders, surveys, homeowners and members' details.