This week, I've been finding all my evening entertainment in our resident swift colony. But let's just say the photographic evidence leaves something to be desired. 

I have absolutely loved this ‘heatwave’. I used to live in Sydney, Australia, and this week’s weather has reminded me of innumerate summer evenings on my little apartment balcony overlooking the vast Pacific, with groups of wild rainbow lorikeets splashing noisily in the bird bath, and licking mango juice from my fingers with their tickly black tongues.  

Gratuitous rainbow lorikeet shot – just because I still love these old Aussie friends. 

So this week, after each long, swelteringly hot day of RSPB magazine-making, I’ve been recreating that Antipodean scene on my typically English back patio, but with friendly collared doves in the birdbath and the gaggles of friendly lorikeets replaced by my favourite British summer bird (albeit a much more aloof one): our resident swifts

On such deliciously balmy evenings, I’m not interested in watching TV (except Springwatch) or being indoors. Having got the kids in bed, you’ll find the two of us chatting on the back patio, with the swifts soaring metres above our heads. The sound of 20-plus swifts shrieking through the sky is a summer lullaby to my children. 

Every now and then, our conversation is interrupted with a ‘wooooaaaah!’ as half a dozen swifts zoom really, really close to us in perfect, noisy formation. 

And all week, every evening, I’ve been trying to take photos of them on my phone. It has really NOT been going well. 

A ‘woaaah’ moment, captured in this – the first of many swift photo fails. 

Swifts move seriously fast. They’ll happily zoom around at over 50mph on those boomerang wings of theirs. Peregrines can stoop faster, but swifts hold the speed record for level flight. That’s definitely faster than I can move my camera. And they’re precision fliers – turning on a sixpence in mid-air without warning. When they’re flying high, it’s easier to at least get them in shot, but they come out looking like this. 

I have about 100 similarly indistinct photos sitting on my camera, if you’re interested. 

And when they’re flying low, you can see them more clearly, but the speed at which they flash past usually results in shots like this: 

They’re too quick for me! 

They never touch ground, so apart from the odd second or two on a windowsill or eaves, they don’t keep still long enough to snap. 

We have at least one swift family nesting in the edge of our attic. The adults will loop a couple of close fly-bys before hurtling straight at the building at full tilt, and we suddenly hear the ‘thwump’ of feathers as they slip through the tiny gap under the roof tiles, to be immediately yelled at by an unknown number of shrieking swiftlets hiding in the eaves. 

Sometimes, part of the adult – a wing or a tail – remains visible for a moment, overhanging the edge of the building, or they might perch for a second on a windowsill, but by the time I get the camera going, they’ve vanished inside. Then there’s no telling when they’ll emerge again. It might be moments later, or not until the following morning. I’ve run down my phone batteries from training its camera on the eaves, to no avail. 

They usually wait until the moment I give up and put the camera down, then I’ll see a brown head and shoulders peer mockingly down at me, before the parent launches into the salmon-pink sunset. She joins the wheeling flocks and they fly low over my face, laughing heartily at my total abject failure to snap this spectacle. 

Go on then. Giggle away. 

I’m intrigued by their lives, and listen to them socialising. They clearly all know each other, these guys – it’s the same families turning up year after year, and the adult hidden in my eaves will shriek loudly in response to calls from others zooming close by. Perhaps they’re her children from a previous year, or her siblings.

Perhaps they’ve asked her to join them for dinner and she’s just telling them, “Yeah yeah, I’ll be out in a moment, Mbuyi – I’m just getting these pesky kids to bed!” (I like to give them African names, since that’s where they spend most of their time). 

There’s certainly an awful lot of late-night chatter between those in the eaves and those in the air. I’m dying to have a look at the family hiding in my attic, but I daren’t disturb them – even though my favourite summer shoes are up there somewhere! 

Eventually, my camera and I are defeated by darkness. I head indoors and their screaming fades, albeit only slightly. Apparently swifts can power-nap on the wing. I wonder how they manage to zoom around at insane speeds while sleeping, and not even crash… imagine if we humans could do that – the global economy would be steaming. 

My swifts returned from central Africa to their ancestral breeding grounds – our street – on the last day of April and, judging by the cacophony in my roof, the family is doing very well. This is despite earlier spells of cold and wet weather. Swift chicks are unique in being able to enter a torpid state and survive without food or parents for several days, so the parents can commute away to seek sustenance in more benign regions. I thought I might have lost them. All seems back on track now, though. 

Last year, they vanished suddenly, one day in August. The young will launch themselves from my eaves from their first flight, head straight off back to Africa, and the skies will fall silent. It’s a sad day for us, but they’ll be back next year to start families of their own. And then I can start another season of patio-based photo fails. 

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Have you managed to successfully snap any swifts, swallows or even house martins in flight? All tips and inspiration welcome – share your snaps by emailing us at the magazine! 

  • Thanks for letting me know Alan! I see there are plenty of much better photos up on the Swift thread and it's great to see so many people doing the same thing - as you say, the fun is in the trying!