swifts, house martin

The swifts are a delight to watch. They are nesting again under the eaves of our neighbours house. There appear to be 6 swifts visiting our neighbours house (there were three nests last year).

The swift is a superb flier and it even sleeps on the wing, high up in the sky! It is sooty brown colour, but in flight it appears black. The last couple of days they have been joined by a few house martins in the late evening. Swifts can be identified by their long, scythe-like wings and a short, forked tail.

Swifts are a summer visitor to the UK where it breeds It is most numerously in the south and east of the UK. Like the swallow and house martin, swifts spend the winter in Africa.

Early in the morning and towards dusk, the swifts scream low over our garden as they fly past our neighbours house. These screaming parties of swift career madly at high speed around rooftops and houses and streets. Our garden is higher than our neighbors and so they are very low when they fly across our garden. Their aerobatic skills are certainly a match for the red arrows!

Every now and then a swift will break away from the group and drop down, without making a sound and flying low it approaches our neighbours house and then flies up into the eaves.