Swifts

[nicknack]

Ace, aren't they. I've just spent the best part of an hour just watching them. Seems to be a particularly good year for them - there's hundreds of the buggers round here. When I was considerably younger they used to nest just outside my bedroom window and occasionally one would misjudge things and end up inside my room. They're utterly crap at being inside. It's definitely a case of, "Oh shit, shit shit. I shouldn't be in here. What the fuck do I do now? Wahhhhhhhh!!!" The upside, from my point of view, was that I got to handle them to get them back outside. And they are beautiful. If you're going to be a bird then they are the ultimate flying machine. Totally brill. The sound of summer. I love 'em.

[Wowbagger]

Agreed, wonderful creatures.

Some years ago, each Wednesday I regularly ate my lunch at the Hanningfield Reservoir Visitors' Centre, where there is a book for anyone who goes there to log their "Latest Sightings" on the nature reserve, showing species, location and number.

One day I went there and it seemed that there was a hatch of something especially tasty from the water and wherever you looked there were swifts zooming around gorging themselves.

Some twitcher who had been there shortly before me had solemnly logged his sightings, which included "Swift, everywhere on the Reservoir, c. 180000".

[Bledlow]

Mayfly day is always good for watching swifts plucking 'em out of the air from all round you.

One zoomed past at head height today, while we were sitting in a pub garden at lunchtime. With the kite which flew past low & slow a little earlier, giving us a much better view than usual, it was a good bird lunchtime.

Nicknack - see my post about removing a swift from my neighbours' house? It was clinging to a plant trembling, poor thing. But flew away looking good.

[LindaG]

Yeah, I love swifts, that noise they make when they hunt is, for me, the sound of summer.  It's good to know you've got lots nicknack, we've always had loads of them near us 'cos of the woods.  This year I've only seen one solitary swift.  It was silent.  Maybe it had no-one to talk to.  Beautiful things.

[Rig of Jarkness]

I've hardly seen any around Edinburgh this year. Can't say I blame them, the weather has been even worse than usual so far this year.

[YahudaMoon]

I was on the south pennine fells 4 week back and spent hours watching them. Fantastic.

[Wowbagger]

I knew there would be a thread here somewhere.

https://www.audubon.org/news/a-lunar-eclipse-sheds-light-fascinating-behavior-birds?fbclid=IwAR2HC-puoVfXUrzSk7RTkxxeyHIkL3usI_5jdQy4ZumVROwXns3DZHwGBlg

Some astonishing stuff about swifts ascending to 3 miles up when there's a full moon.