I always think it’s like losing a dimension when the swifts leave. The world becomes a flatter place - or at least the sky does for a while. The free sound installation that we’ve been tuning into all spring and summer has been turned off: time to move along now, please. The pyrotechnics have been put back in the box labelled ‘next year’. We still see swifts hovering briefly over our streets, usually at some distance, high up - but they are passing through, on business, with various, complicated undertakings to complete.
Swifts disappearing, as I mentioned in my previous post, usually coincides with us being away on holiday in mid-to-late August. That they are early departing this year, compared to most years (last year they left here in a funk at the beginning of August) seems to tally with a lot of the accounts and posts I’m reading from other swift watchers. This is a healthy sign. Yes, all in all it’s been a good year for the swifts.
With these truncated opportunities in mind, I intend this to be the last post until September. When I’m back there be will one final dispatch, not so much an ending or round up as a reflection on a Crookes street as the year turns the corner into autumn — although I am legally bound to mention swifts at some point in the post. If I do spot any swifts on my travels (I was in Turin in early September a couple of years ago and the place was full of them, enjoying the sun, occupying the Renaissance towers) I will be sending out notes - so look out for European correspondence on that lightweight, almost see-through paper stamped Par Avion.
Here are the diary entries from notes I have posted this week:
August 10th 2025
I hear a cry or two in the early evening but don’t see a bird at all. I go out front to see if we have a gathering at dusk but there are no swifts circling the rooftops. A swift doesn’t return to roost tonight.
August 11th 2025
I visit a friend in the heat of the morning. There are bird feeders hanging from trees and a constant supply of sparrows around them fighting over the pecking order.
This evening I hear swifts at least two times overhead, though they are soon as here as gone, and I can’t pick them out from the sky’s gradual bruising into darker blues.
August 12th 2025
At about 4pm I catch two swifts flying south with no song or ceremony. Although they are no more than soft black shapes I know that they are swifts from the way they are traveling distances with so little effort. The way the whole sky focuses in on their lines and curves.
August 13th 2025
The sky is a big blue bowl. A lone swift passes over our garden like an extra from a film long since wrapped up. Where is its clan?
August 14th 2025
Two crows caw back and forth at dawn. The wind is light, the sun already strong, but there are no swifts to be seen.
Thanks for reading this post. If you want to read my poetry, including Little Piece Of Harm - which, like these swift diaries, is a kind of love letter to a city, you can find details on the Longbarrow Press website here. I have a website that has a fair representation of my work, including the River Don sequence of poems, here. I also have a podcast where I interview poets about influence and poetics: The Two-Way Poetry Podcast. The two seasons of interviews are available on Podbean here.