6First published in 1956, Swifts in a Tower still offers astonishing insights into the private lives of swifts, their lifestyles, and the environment they inhabit. Now more than sixty years later, swifts have been studied even more thoroughly, using technology unimaginable in the 1950s. This research has revealed more secrets of these indomitable flyers, which spend virtually their entire lives in flight, and so this new edition, edited by the author's son Andrew Lack and published in association with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for their Oxford Swift City project, includes a brand-new chapter by Andrew Lack that updates the story of this remarkable bird for the twenty-first century.