Swift Diaries
What is left behind
I knew everything had changed the moment I bundled my rucksack out of the car. A group of six or seven swifts skirled around our house, as many birds as I had seen swishing low over the road all summer. We had left Sheffield in a kind of damp and drizzly fug and returned (a month later) to heatwave.
This summer’s experiences have been a bit like watching a movie where the middle section (act two) has been edited out: I have the beginning and end of the script to piece together possible narratives. Fortunately, there are some clues to flag up what has happened to the swifts in our absence — through the end of June and beginning of July — with reports of the weather being one sure indicator (it rained more in Japan that it has done in South Yorkshire).
It took a couples of days for Jo to point out all the swift guano dotted around under the nest. This is a sure sign of healthy chicks. One pair of swifts that used to raise birds under the eaves of our house used to find a way of dispelling swift shit all over the passenger’s side of the car (which meant throwing faeces out and to the right of the cleft). We used to come across small smears of poo on the flanks of the Touran most mornings in late June/early July. These days, excrement is chucked directly below the nest onto the wall. The stuff is usually white in colour, a ball or peanut shape no bigger than a finger-nail with sometimes a grey slick ‘parachute’ attached to the main body. When I see these ‘stars’ appearing I know the fledglings are doing well, and will ‘step out’ soon.
Though I’m sure I must have missed the moment when the fledglings emerged this year. I’ve never witnessed inaugural flights, or at least I don’t think I have. The young swifts ‘broke out’ when we were away, hence one of the reasons why there are so many more swifts whizzing and gliding over streets, roofs and gardens. The parents are certainly still resident: I saw them enter the nest in tandem only a couple of nights ago, one straight after the other, like somebody shoving gloves into a pocket. With the consistently hot temperatures the swifts are not going anywhere for the moment - which means we have had viewed some fantastic flypasts and displays over the past week or so.
One thing that did fascinate me on Monday (20th) was seeing a group of swifts ‘fighting over’ our nest in the middle of the day. Swifts would enter and leave the nest will no obvious sense of ‘purpose’ i.e. there was no need to enter the nest because there were no birds left to feed, and no reason to be in the dark on such a sunny day. I saw three swifts trying to enter the nest at one point - the final bird being beaten back as it attempted to squeeze through the gap. One of the the bird’s superpowers is coming back to the place where they were born, of having a mental map of where the roosts are located in the near vicinity. I wonder if this is what the swifts were doing, by falling in and out - imprinting the physical space onto their ‘collective’ memory. I hope also - via this reckoning - that the swifts have taken note of the swift bricks on our own and our neighbours’ houses. If they return in number I want them to know all of them can be accommodated.
I look up now and think this is the best time to be swift-watching, at the end of July in hot weather, when sometimes you can see twenty to thirty swifts roiling in blue sky. I hear them plentifully outside my bedroom window, particularly in the morning. They stick around for longer during the day. When this weather eventually breaks, when the rain and cooler fronts push in, that’s when the ‘spell’ will be broken (it rained overnight and today the sky is conspicuously quiet). Some or all of the swifts will leave, though the breeding adult swifts ensconced in nests might stick around for longer. What they are doing now is feeding, bulking up for their imminent trans-continental departure: if there are enough insects to feed on, they’ll hang around. If the supply of food runs dry, they will spiral off leaving only silence (and their droppings) behind.
Here are the diary entries from notes I have written since the break:
16th June
We leave the tube at Northfields and walk over to Ealing to break up our journey. In the pub we hear the parakeets - then, was that a swift? We look high above at unmistakable bending shapes. There’s one - and later - three birds, whose home must be this West London suburb. Their flights in sight of aeroplanes lifting and descending about Heathrow.
21st June
Fujiyoshida is at the end of the line because the mountain stops anything from passing through. We walk to the viewing platforms, Turtle Rock, the shrine — the boys make it up to Goten in the pines. On the way down, looking for somewhere to eat, we spot swallows balanced on the wires and then, swerving around the low level apartments, swifts. I look up and there are three of them, a ‘shot’ that seems no different from when I step out into my back garden and raise my head to sky.
16th July
I saw - for the first time - a Bradley Street swift squeeze into its nest this evening. I thought the swifts might roost in one of the old farm cottages on the road, but what do I know: the bird nestled under the eaves of an Edwardian terrace that we can glimpse from our house through the trees. I also realised, discovered that this house has a swift box - its dark wood camouflaged by the colour of the bricks. I forget sometimes to look closer, look farther.
17th July
I’m out at 6.30am to see the first swift wobbling over our garden in the style of a compass needle. Give it half an hour and there are half a dozen birds skimming over the rooftops. They begin to scream as the sun heats up the air and there’s enough of them to banter.
Later, in the evening there are twenty or so high-fliers turning in every direction. I catch - out of the corner of my eye - a swift entering the crack in the brickwork underneath our eaves.
18th July
The day is cooler, the wind coming from the north. I only see one swift all day. It makes big ’S’ shapes over nearby streets and houses then loses itself in air.
19th July
Jo points out there’s lots of swift guano on the wall. This has always been an affirmative sign. We used to get swift shit on the flanks of the car in July. These days faeces from the nest land on the wall directly beneath the gutter. Healthy chicks make a load of mess.
20th July
Just gone midday and two swifts fling themselves (unexpectedly) from the nest, like a magician pulling a string of flags from her sleeve. Later, one then two then three birds enter the nest - but the third bird is batted back as it comes close to the hole in the wall.
21st July
The evening is cooler and quieter for it. Why is it when I hear a swift do I project onto the bird’s reedy whistle signs of exhaustion?
22nd July
I go out at dusk to see if I can catch any swift action. There are two birds gliding in big circles over our road. A minute later, they tip and dive, one rhythmically following the other into the nest, folding into nothing.
23rd July
I catch their sounds more than spot the birds today, though it’s good to see swifts still frequenting the high street, spinning over the card and betting shop, the cafes and barbers and supermarkets.
24th July
Heat and sun and swift calls. It feels like this ‘soundtrack’ could repeat for another month - but this is just a trick of the light.
25th July
Randomly (it seems randomly) one swift flies westwards over my head early evening. It flies almost straight, jinking a little from side to side, tipping sideways and back again — jittery, brisk, concentrated.