Our summer's not yet, we hope, over. But its wonderful heralds who arrived back in May are already gathering in big clouds overhead, screaming their heads off and getting ready to set off on their 7,000 mile journey to winter in South East Africa.
Radio 4's Tweet of the Day reminded us how it was - and, God willing, how it will be again next year. I'm happy to report having seen two little white faces looking out from the nest on my own house - but less happy to report a tragedy when an adult possibly feeding its young was brought in at midnight by my cat. What on earth it was doing sufficiently low-down at that time of night totally defeats me. I have to take some comfort from a previous compensating deed, when a young bird one can only assume had fallen from its nest, was laid totally unharmed at my feet and after tlc at the Wiltshire Wildlife Hospital, released to adult life. Some people reckon contemporary music is just loud screaming. Well, it's not just humans that do it. This bird regularly holds screaming parties while it's with us during the summer, one end of its 14,000 mile round trip to and from South West Africa every year of its life.
The young birds in the nest do exercises to strengthen their wings before they fledge and then spend their entire adult lives on the wing - why we're not constantly showered with their poo escapes me. But they also eat and mate on the wing and only land again in nests to breed, when they're around 3 years old. The swift is an extraordinary creature and I freely admit to being obsessed with them - I have a natural nest under the eaves on my house, and put up four expensive nest boxes which have been totally ignored. I don't mind but there is a terrible shortage of nesting sites so I'm a bit puzzled. Quite hurt, in fact. Hello again! This one's a bit different. (video removed) We don't just want you to guess or say what these are, but also to tell us if you have any anywhere near you. This is really important, because we should do a survey of the whole of Tisbury, but there just aren't enough of us to plan that. So please, look out, listen out, let us know! On Facebook or to tisnathist@gmail.com (apology for previous typo). They're one of three breeds that come thousands of miles to breed here, and then go thousands of miles back to southern Africa to feed during our winter. Of course others do this, but these three seem particularly to be the sound of our summer. At this time of year, just like a school-leaving prom, they're trying out their wings and building up strength for life as adults. This is them in their nests - - but it's not just the parents who have to squeeze in, it's up to four babies-kids-teenagers!!
It's not surprising that all through the night you can hear one of the most beautiful sounds in nature - a little constant cheep-burble, I guess saying 'shove over a bit, your claw's in my ear' or something like that. Our colleagues in swift-conservation.org have alerted us to a small piece in The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/12/country-diary-swifts-band-together-for-screaming-parties. Nothing new, but always good to see swifts getting a profile - increasingly so. One of our members has drawn our attention to a lovely article, 'Consider the Swift' by Katherine Rundell, in the London Review of Books. You can access this at
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n16/katherine-rundell/consider-the-swift if you sign up to read up to four articles a month in the LRB - sounds like a good offer. The purpose of this survey is to record locations of swift nest sites around the UK. This information can then be used by local authority planners, architects, ecologists and developers to find out where swift hotspots are located around the country and therefore mitigate to protect breeding swifts during building development. This conservation planning tool plays an important role in reversing the decline of this charismatic migrant bird.
Please note, swift records submitted to the swift survey during previous years have been retained and are making a difference for swift conservation. |
Photo: Avocets (Izzy Fry)
The headers display photos taken by our members. Do get in touch via the Contact Form if you'd like to submit a photo for selection.
Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|