Nature Watch – Swifts

By Admin on May 10, 2023

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I’m excited to say I’ve just spotted my first group of swifts flying low above West Lane. Wondering what the collective noun for a group of swifts is, perhaps a ‘swoop’, I discover that the Woodland Trust states that it’s a ‘scream’ of swifts. Which is fitting and why, back in 2019, I heard their characteristic sweet screams on the 1st of May, two days before spotting them in the skies. Presumably they couldn’t be seen on the 1st because they had ascended beyond sight, as they do each night, to sleep while drifting on thermals. Truly aerial birds, they spend the most part of their life in flight, apart from during nesting and raising their young. Amazingly they eat, drink, bathe, sleep and mate on the wing. Indeed if you find a grounded swift, it’s probably a swift in trouble. Contrary to a common myth, a healthy swift can take off from the ground, but if you approach it and it can take off the probability is that it will. If it can’t, it’s in trouble. In which case stay with it and look up https://www.swift-conservation.org/SwiftFirstAid.htm. where the initial advice is – Don’t leave it; Don’t throw it in the air; Don’t feed it; Don’t delay. The Swift SOS section of the website signposts you to organisations that can help.

These intrepid aerial adventurers, having travelled from Sub-Saharan Africa, are pretty punctual in their arrival. The late Monica Butler said on Embsay Update, after a first sighting was noted on 6th May 2021, that:

“Looking back at my record of bird arrival dates in Embsay over almost 40 years, I am amazed to see that the swifts are probably the most consistent: other than the very occasional late April arrival, they have all been between 1 and 10 May, never mind our weather here at that time! Looking even further back to 1908 (no, I wasn’t around then, but have the Craven Herald dates!), the swifts arrived on 1 May in the Craven area.”

We’re lucky that the swifts choose to return year after year to Embsay. Their numbers are said to be in rapid decline, in part due to a continued loss in suitable nesting sites. They often nest in the eaves of old buildings, and indeed year on year come home to nest in cottage roofs on Main Street and Pasture Road every year.

They will bless us with their flying, screaming and swooping acrobatics in our Embsay skies for about three months, and I, for one, will relish their presence dearly.

The following photo is taken from the woodlandtrust.org.uk