Morning all,
Over the weekend of 2‒3 May, we receive via WhatsApp a photo from a friend who works at a local wildlife rehabilitation centre. A familiar sight, but one I haven’t seen for many months now; a familiar shape in a box lined with paper, head tilted up to the camera. A Common Swift.
I reply, ‘Poor thing’. And say that she must be tired. But no. Our friend assures us that she’s in good shape, has the ‘right weight, and even put on two grams during her 24 hours in care, before she was successfully released back into the wild.
Late on Sunday, I check local sightings. There are reasonable numbers being posted at lower altitudes (and the swift in the photo came from the lakeside), but up here in the hills sightings are few and far between. In one village not far from here, where an acquaintance of ours has 250 nesting boxes, the oldest sighting is from one week ago. One, lone bird.
On Monday morning, I’m out on the terraced area on the south side of the house, examining Wisteria, and wondering how this year’s growth will work out as we try to extend the framework a little. And I hear two, second-long shrill whistles. It takes a moment to recognise that sound, but they help me out by whistling by once more. Two swifts flying across the south side of the house, and over my head.
And over the course of the morning, we go from one pair whistling by to six birds, twelve, twenty. To three hundred or more. Out in the valley, over the river, the air is alive with them, and they’re joined by local Crag Martins (who probably wonder where the big ones have been, as they’ve been around for a while now (just yesterday we watched them seeing off a Sparrowhawk)), by Barn Swallows, and by Sand Martins.
The swifts spin around the church clock tower and race up to the house calling. I call back: ‘Welcome home!’ (It's a big place, and the neighbours can't hear me.) Given the circumstances, it seems they’ve opted for tiny face-masks, but to call better and louder they’ve pulled them down over their chins—little pale patches. We’ve had the garden, especially certain trees, cut back a little to give them the run of the place, and they race up to us from the village, then back, and across the front of the house, calling and calling.
Nobody has told them, these '*** heads', these 'flying rats' (as one poster so charmingly described them last year), that they're simple automatons; merely bundles of basic biological imperatives. They seem to think that flying is fun. And that it's more fun if you throw in some screaming. Of the communal variety if at all possible.
And this morning, at 10:02, I see the first attempt to get under the roof tiles. Failed. But at 10:03, we have two adults in their nest, and from under the tiles they call out to the dozens of birds occupied in a spectacular fly-by. They've noticed the new nesting boxes we've put up: 'Come on in, the boxes are lovely!'
So, whatever we’re all going through right now (and good luck to you all), I’d like to (I think I’m obliged to) let everyone know that, in the greater scheme of things, everything’s going to be alright: the swifts are back. And they've said as much.
All the best from the sunny Jura -
Dave
