Swift Diaries

A Tuesday in early June

I was up early on Tuesday. I had to sort out my son’s breakfast and make his lunch before a day of GCSEs. There were other things on my to-do list to think about: a man was coming from the carpet shop to have a look at our troublesome grey-slate design vinyl floor. Later, I was aiming to attend an on-line meeting to see if we were going to accept the management’s offer. It was going to be that kind of morning.

I hadn’t seen a swift for two days. In the off-chance I might catch a ‘local’ resident before it set off on its travels, I stepped out into the back garden. It was about 6:55am. The first thing I noticed was how dark the sky was - the colour of bruising (before the reds and purples surface), where the flat mass of heavy clouds sucked most of the light from the heavens. Then I saw the birds. Black birds in a black sky. It seemed like there were so many. Think of paper being burnt in a fire, the flakes and embers flying off and up and around. There they were, mid-range, about thirty birds, maybe more, tumbling around each other. They moved together and moved apart at the same time: they were loosely in ‘formation’ and separate in the way they cut above and below in lines and curves. The group were ‘roiling’ directly overhead, before they powered up the hill - a swarm of swifts - tangling and untangling. When they reached the top of the road, gravity seemed to take effect, and they began to roll back down the hill again. I listened to the long thin thread of their screeches, looping together into tiny knots. They had all come from who knows where (and how far?) to make contact and communicate. They had decided to meet on a ‘patch’ of sky above our road to dance.

I watched them ‘fall’ back down the hill for a further two or three minutes before I went back inside to continue with breakfast. By the time I came out again, it was 7:20am and there were two swifts left, coupled in circles of flight, low over gardens and nearby streets. Five minutes later, the sky was big, almost monotone, empty. I didn’t catch sight of another swift for two days.

Two nights ago (Friday), I watched a swift enter the nest for the first time in over a week. If you’re a swift not ‘tied’ to a nest of eggs, there probably isn’t any point in sticking around in cool and wet conditions. These swift-silent days point toward the community of birds being elsewhere. I saw the ‘homing’ swift last night because I was being strategic (going out just as the street lights were being triggered by dusk) and consciously looking up at the quadrant of sky the birds usually appear from. Whether these two swifts, sticking it out through the ‘worst’ of June, will raise healthy chicks will depend a lot on the weather. I’m hoping the sun returns to burn away the clouds. I’m hoping for more dancing swifts.

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Here are the diary entries from notes I have posted this week:

31st May

I’ve been watching the clouds all day, from the north — turning more westerly this evening. I’ve been waiting for rain that has never quite materialised. The odd spot — but that’s all. Waiting to see if rain will flush the swifts out. But without rain there have been no birds.

1st June

Without a swift to focus on, the sky seems bigger. It certainly feels emptier - especially as this is the first day of meteorological summer. This time last year, the birds were more visible, even in the rain. This evening there’s only rain, thick against the window.

2nd June

Second Wave?

3rd June

We’re sitting in the park, overlooking the towers of Stannington, and further off, the green of Rivelin Valley. Every five to ten seconds we hear swifts, but the sky is blank. Where are they? We walk up toward Crookes. The same clear screams. It’s not birds — you point at the black box on the front of a house — but a swift caller.

4th June

I’ve not seen a swift for two days now. The bagatelle of wind and showers, the cool air, seems to have pushed away any swift that doesn’t need or want to be here. If we have nesting swifts, they are keeping to the edges of the horizon. I’ve seen this before — but not at the beginning of June.

5th June

If I see swifts at all, it is in seconds rather than minutes. That swift I saw dip out of sight two streets away. The swift that swung low over a neighbour’s garden and disappeared behind the terraces of Bradley Street. Or the swift I’ve just seen fall out of the sky, as if from nowhere, to swerve and slide into the nest.

6th June

After a day of warm rain leading to this dry, humid evening, it’s good to see (and hear) a group of maybe ten swifts spiralling over Slinn Street for a few minutes before they break apart again.