Country diary: My fear is that one year the swifts will not return
My beloved swallows, talisman of my summer happiness, are busy nesting in the stables. Their blue-black shine glistens as they acrobatically insect-catch, collect mud and chatter from the beams.
This year, I'm just as obsessed with the return of another migrant species – swifts. It is the fault of the author and campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor. We've spoken recently about her new book, Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts, detailing her battle to have a single swift brick made mandatory in every new-build home. Swifts are totally reliant on our buildings for their (diminishing) nest spaces.
My eyes turn skywards several times a day, watching and waiting. The contrails of planes crisscross the skies, but no dark crescents yet cut through the air. I feel a sense of unease, fearing a year will come when the waiting will never stop. But in the next few days, I hear reports of swifts just a few miles away.
At the farm, the insect-packed wildflower meadows of purple phacelias, pink sainfoins and oxeye daisies will be their feeding grounds. Hundreds of swifts from surrounding villages and the city will gather, screaming in what sounds like excitement, especially when the tiny black pollen beetles swarm. There is surely not another creature so dedicated to the aerial lifestyle – sleeping, mating and feeding on the wing. Even their scientific name, Apus apus translates as footless.
And then I see one. A sole scythe, black against the sky, slicing through the air. In the coming days, my count reaches a dozen – not many, but a start.
Now, after weeks of dry, it is rain we are waiting for. Ponds are empty and dust swirls. We've had to cut the meadows for hay early because although it is sparse, the grass was going to seed. This at least gives a chance of a second crop – if it rains. A parched hedgehog visits my little garden pond that I've been topping up, and drinks for 10 minutes.
I think of Hannah and how she won't stop fighting for swifts. It's devastating that something so simple and so cheap as 'a brick with a hole' is not happening. Really, what hope does the natural world have?
Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
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