Fireside reading

Remember summer?  When those wonderful swifts were holding their 'screaming parties' overhead, like in this video (hover and click on the arrows to expand)?  This is a wonderful piece by Helen Macdonald, the author of H is for Hawk.  

​​I've lain on my back observing the

swift nest on my own house and it's true as she says,  that when the parents home in to their young, the other swifts - the younger ones that aren't mated - just disappear.  Now I know they just go upward till I can't hear them any more.  Read on ...