Listen out for screaming
Swifts are returning to our skies
The first thing I noticed when I arrived at the front door of our new house last June was screaming. Thankfully it wasn’t our new neighbours having a row, or the previous residents trapped inside, but a huge flock of swifts soaring overhead. Before the move I’d been nervous about leaving my South London roots and going somewhere new, away from our friends and my beloved local park. But now we had swifts. We’d made a good decision. My partner and I spent many a balmy evening sitting in our new garden marvelling at swifts swooping low and screaming over our heads. We’d spend lunch breaks craning our necks to watch them swooping and dashing as high as the clouds (swifts can fly up to 10,000 feet!). We savoured every moment while we could. And - despite the fact we knew it was going to happen - when we returned home from a trip to Scotland in September to find ‘our’ swifts had migrated back to Africa for the winter, we went through a full grieving process, worried they might not return the following year.
I talk to anyone who will listen about swifts. Surely even those who don’t give a toss about birds might be interested in a species that spend 10 months of the year on the wing - sleeping, eating and even mating while in flight - some not landing, even briefly, during that time. These are birds that spend the winter in Africa and migrate to Europe for the summer, where they will nest. And they really are swift - a team at the University of Lund in Sweden (in the most current definitive study) found that the entire journey from Africa to Sweden takes an average of 29 days. The fastest swift in the study averaged an incredible 403 miles per day! Anders Hedenström, one of the Swedish researchers, calculates that the distance swifts fly over their lifetime amounts to travelling to the moon and back up to seven times. Because of their unusual habits, so much is still unknown about swifts, but every new bit of information I discover, and every scream from the skies I hear, fills me with glee.
A couple of weeks ago, as I was walking back inside from the garden, mid-conversation with a friend staying for the weekend, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. An unmistakable silhouette in the sky, dive bombing behind a neighbour’s house. I stopped in my tracks. “Sam, pass me the binoculars,” I demanded. Thankfully, Sam (who I used to house share with and is therefore well used to me banging on about birds) followed orders. “THE SWIFTS ARE BACK!” I called into the house. My partner, who is now as enthusiastic about these acrobatic birds as I am, came running and we all stood in the garden, Sam now looking through the binoculars, struggling to keep up with the new arrivals and me shouting “WELCOME BACK!”, waving maniacally at the sky. As I write this, I can count ten swifts overhead, each performing impressive stunts to catch flying insects in the skies above my house. More, I hope, could still be on their way from Africa. We didn’t need to worry.
That being said, swifts are on the Red List of birds in the UK, so we really do need to care about them. RSPB and BTO estimate the number of swifts here has declined by 41% between 2008 and 2018 due to a number of factors including the climate crisis affecting weather patterns, pesticides poisoning the insects they eat and people filling holes in their walls (which prevents nesting). So watch the skies, listen out for screaming and spread the word about these magnificent creatures. Swifts travel a long way to get here, the least we can do is look out for them.
How you can help…
Log your swift sightings (especially if you locate a nest site) on the Swift Mapper website.
Fit a swift nesting place at your home (we are trying to figure out if this is possible at our house - there are quite specific guidelines).
Spread the word about swifts - the more people care, the more they will want to help.
Further reading / Extra links
Familiarise yourself with what swifts sound like on xeno-canto.
I’m currently reading The Screaming Sky: In pursuit of swifts by Charles Foster, which I highly recommend for any other swift enthusiasts out there!
Devil Birds: The Life of the Swift by Derek Bromhall is another brilliant book about these fascinating creatures.
The Swift Conservation website contains all the info you could ever need about swifts, including lots of info on nest boxes and swift bricks. You can also watch this RSPB video if you prefer to learn about installing nesting sites that way.
Learn more about swifts (and other migratory species) on the RSPB website.
Read about the folklore surrounding swifts and why they’re known as the Devil’s bird.
And… if you’re looking for a great swift-watching summer holiday in the UK, consider staying in one of my mum’s holiday cottages (called Swift and Swallow) at her home in Dumfries & Galloway, McMurdoston House. Mum and her husband Steve have done the most incredible things for their local bird community, including making holes in the wall of their barn for swifts to nest). McM is one of my favourite places to watch swifts do their thing and where I really fell in love with them.
Please feel free to add more resources in the comments for others to find!
Do you have swifts overhead where you are? I’d love to hear about them.
We have Swifts in the village where I live in West Suffolk but sadly they get fewer and fewer each year.
I'm loving learning from your posts, Zabby. Thank you. I'm going to listen out for the swifts' screams. I'm sure there are some around here.