What About The Other Swifts?

Many people are very excited by Swift – well, Taylor Swift, to be precise. But what about the other Swifts?

The poet Ted Hughes wrote:

A bolas of three or four wire screams

Jockeying across each other

On their switchback wheel of death.

They swat past, hard-fletched

We seemed to wait an age this year for our Swifts, House Martins and Swallows to return but they made it in the end. Our Swifts have flown from sub- Saharan Africa, a journey of some 3,500 miles each way. They eat, sleep and mate on the wing only pausing to nest – some can go for 10 months without landing anywhere. They are more closely related to Hummingbirds than Swallows and can fly at speeds over 100mph. They typically live for 10 to 20 years and have been known to make it to 30. If you want to help them consider putting up a Swift nest box. They can be purchased or you can make them with some simple carpentry. Alternatively you can now buy Swift bricks which can be incorporated into brick structures, which look very neat and require no maintenance.

 

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