22/07/2026
I’ve watched them from the garden every evening this summer since they arrived. I could watch them for hours.
Most people know swifts are fast. Fewer people know they spend ten months of the year airborne without landing, that a young swift may not touch down for two or three years after its first flight, or that the species has been essentially unchanged for over fifty million years.
They’re not related to swallows at all. Their closest relatives are hummingbirds.
If you hear screaming over the rooftops on a warm evening, look up.
Save this for someone who’d want to know.