Swifts

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I saw my first swift of the year yesterday. Swifts arrive late and leave early. We often see swift nesting on the buildings in Kirkby Stephen our local town that has a lot of old houses with lots of nooks and crannies. We haven't managed to tempt them into nesting on our house but we have a nest box up just in case. Apparently one needs to play swift calls on a loud speaker to be more confident of them visiting .

Like all of our summer migrants swifts come here in the summer as the extra hours of daylight in Northern climes allow for more hours hunting insects with which to feed the young.



Swifts are superficially similar to swallows but this is a case of convergent evolution and the species are not closely related - swifts belonging to the same order of birds as hummingbirds. Some people find these birds hard to differentiate. This simple chart published by one of the wildlife trusts makes simple work of it.

One thing is for sure , if you see a bird perching it won't be a swift as they have very poorly developed legs. This is not a surprise as swifts spend almost their entire life on the wing - even to the extent of sleeping in flight. It is an extraordinary fact that once a young swift takes flight it will be two whole years before it next touches the ground when it lands to breed.

Diary
Four red squirrel in the garden at the same time. Adults with two youngsters?

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