The beginnings as "Mobile Bird Aid"
Today's Swift Rescue Center began in 1994 as "Mobile Bird Aid" (Mobile Vogelhilfe) and as the dream of a rescue and rehabilitation centre of our own under veterinary direction. The model and the vision – once widely smiled at, today already within the realm of the possible! – was and still is the falcon clinic in the Emirate of Dubai (Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital).
The founder of the Swift Rescue Center, Christiane Haupt, completed a placement in the summers of 1990 and 1991 at Ingeborg Polaschek's officially licensed wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre near Gelnhausen in Hesse, where she learned above all how to handle wild birds of the most varied species correctly. When Mrs Polaschek had to close her centre in 1992 for health reasons, Christiane Haupt's path was clear: she gave up her profession at the time as a freelance graphic designer and began to study veterinary medicine. The goal: competent treatment of birds, and of wild birds in particular!
Even during her first years at university, Christiane Haupt was constantly commuting between her home in Frankfurt and her place of study in Gießen with any number of boxes full of feathered foster children. These were the beginnings of "Mobile Bird Aid". During lectures, tits, sparrows, blackbirds, starlings and swifts were fed. When there were too many of them to carry around all the time, the office of the professor of anatomy became a refuge for the young birds.
Christiane Haupt increasingly specialised in swifts. A few fledglings that had fallen from their nests, helpless and half starved. Then an injured adult swift. One look into those enigmatic dark eyes was enough – a passion was born. To help – but how? Word soon got round that there was now someone here who looked after swifts. And so more and more birds arrived, from everywhere. While cramming for her veterinary finals: feeding, phone calls, feeding, treating injuries, feeding, X-rays, feeding – she even took 32 swifts along to her state examination, where they waited next door for their next feed!
The swift rehabilitation centre
In 1998, immediately after the final examinations, the number of swifts in care finally exceeded anything that could still be transported. The summer of 1998 became the first season of the swift rehabilitation centre at a permanent address. It was Christiane Haupt's private address, a small 35 m² basement flat. Over the following four years it was to burst at the seams – year after year the small, entirely voluntary swift centre in Frankfurt am Main recorded more patients: there had been 13 in 1994, 51 in 1995, 56 in 1996 and already 101 swifts in 1997, while in 1998 a total of 163 swifts were admitted. Finally, with 234 swift patients, 1999 went far beyond the limits of what a single person could cope with. Give up? Unthinkable. All that was and still is left is to press on!
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mauersegler e.V. (German Association for the Protection of Common Swifts) – founding an association
A few helpers came forward here and there, often recruited from among the clients that Christiane Haupt was looking after at the same time in her bird consultations at the renowned Frankfurt small animal clinic of Dr med. vet. Volker Hach. In terms of both staff and finances, the swift centre was on the brink of disaster day after day. Somehow things always carried on at the very last minute, not least thanks to the founding of the association "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mauersegler e.V.", which became the body running the facility. Then, in 2002, came the end: in Christiane Haupt's basement flat the work of the swift centre could no longer be carried out under conditions worthy of either people or birds. The desperate search for new premises – and for the money to pay for them – began.
Officially licensed rescue and rehabilitation centre for swifts
All efforts were in vain. Once again, rescue came at the last minute: the previous landlord made a 65 m² flat in Frankfurt-Griesheim available at an acceptable rent. The centre's volunteers carried out makeshift renovation and fitting-out in record time before the 2003 season began in new and larger premises. This was the home, until March 2012, of the facility that had by then become known far beyond the region and even abroad, and which was also officially licensed in 2005. It comprised a bird room, a training room, a combined office and operating room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a hallway and a cellar.
But as early as 2004/2005 it became clear that these rooms, too, were far too small for the influx of patients and the growing number of helpers. Once again there was an urgent need for new, larger premises of at least 100–120 m² for the institution that had meanwhile established itself as the Swift Rescue Center....
Into the future on 180 m²: the Frankfurt Swift Rescue Center
Then, in 2012, the time had finally come. After a long and intensive search, the seemingly impossible came off: not far from the old centre, premises of 180 m² became available that were affordable and, on top of everything else, suitable for use as a clinic. Thanks to many willing hands they were renovated and fitted out within a short time and in good time for the start of the season.
Since then the training room has offered enough space for flying. The considerably larger bird room allows additional feeding places to be set up, so that new feeding volunteers can be trained even during the peak season. The kitchen has enough room for freezers holding swift food and even a small seating corner for taking a breather. Office and operating room are finally separate, and patients are no longer admitted "in passing" in the doorway.
The catchment area of our feathered patients has long extended far beyond the region, and for some years international cooperation has also been growing, above all with other European bird protection and animal welfare organisations. A place at the Swift Rescue Center is particularly sought after for patients needing their plumage restored. In 2017, treatment of an Alpine Swift in Israel meant that it could be released back into the wild. Usually between 700 and 800 patients are treated each year; in 2012 there were more than 800. In June 2018 the 12,000th patient was admitted; most patients are juvenile and adult Common Swifts, followed by a number of Alpine Swifts and Pallid Swifts each year.