The Swifts are Screaming Again

Last night, I saw my first swift of the year, fluttering in circles above my home with those characteristic sharp, stiff wing beats. I wondered if it was one of "our" swifts, or a migrant on his way home somewhere else.

Tonight, sad to have spent a glorious day working - typical - I got home and inhaled my meal rather than ate it, so keen was I to get out again quickly, to change out of my awful work clothes and get out in the evening sun.

It really was a beautiful evening, and upon the cirrus streaked blue sky more swifts had arrived, circling their local nest sites of which there are three near me, in groups of three or four. Soon there will be more, and indeed across town by Millgate where they must also have a home, there were perhaps 8 on the go. They were staying high, but already they were being very noisy, their screams carrying easily to the ground below as the sun gave the western horizon a vivid blush.

Other good birds were about too, a sparrowhawk flap-flap-gliding above the hospital on its way east; a kestrel scattering starlings on Millgate. But I was also glad to see a rather less spectacular song thrush feeding with a group of blackbirds on a lawn. You really don't see so many of them these days.

Best of all however, was just the feeling of walking on a warm sunny evening again. It's been a long time.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.05.16

Catholic church in the sunset

Leggy old beast

The Queen's Sconce

River Devon

Grazing horses

Along the river, where the sand martins are flying