The Swifts

Any day now, the swifts will be gone. The skies are already quiet, with only one or two silent stragglers passing overhead. My best local site, where 50, 60 or more swifts could be seen hurtling acrobatically through the air at the height of the season, was down to a dozen or so birds earlier in the week, and to just one last night. I see this swift-rich site from the train window on my way home, and I know that very soon, perhaps this evening, I'll look out and there will be no swifts at all. And summer - the real summer - will be over. Their stay is so short - just three months in which to arrive, nest, mate and rear the next generation (I saw my first swift on the morning after my daughter's wedding, which was on May 6th - a week later than last year). No wonder Gilbert White was so convinced that his beloved swifts (and swallows and martins) spend the winter in hibernation rather than migrating - how could a bird be raised from a helpless nestling to a creature capable of flying thousands of miles south in such a short period of time? What White didn't know, and what makes the fact still more extraordinary, is that our swifts take epic flights of anything up to 800 miles to evade oncoming storms, leaving their young untended. The fledglings survive by sinking into a semi-comatose state - closely resembling hibernation - which enables them to last for up to ten days with no food. And even after losing half their body weight, the young swifts can recover and grow to full strength, ready for that epic flight south. Wonderful, mysterious birds - how we'll miss them...