They came back on a Tuesday, screaming over the rooftops at half past seven in the evening, exactly one day later than last year.
I heard them before I saw them — that high, thin shriek that is somehow the most summery sound I know — and went out into the lane with a cup of tea to watch. Five of them, then nine, tearing around the church tower in tight loops as if they had never been away.
Where they have been
Swifts spend almost their whole lives in the air. They eat, drink and even sleep on the wing, and the ones over our street have, in the months since August, flown to somewhere south of the Sahara and back. Then they turn up above the same gutter they left, apparently on schedule.
It is a ridiculous journey to make in order to scream at a church.
For the notebook
- First swifts: May 12, around 7:30 pm. Last year: May 11.
- Weather: warm, still, a little hazy.
- Number seen: nine at most, all at once.
Every year I tell myself I will be less moved by this. Every year I am wrong.
They will be gone again by the middle of August, usually overnight, and the street will feel oddly quiet for a week. Until then, evening tea is taken outside.