This small book contains all you ever want to know about Swifts unless you are even more obsessed than the author.
It's been shortlisted for The Wainwright Book Prize for nature writing.
The Publishers website describes the book...............................
Swifts live in perpetual summer. They inhabit the air like nothing on the planet. They watched the continents shuffle to their present
places and the mammals evolve. They are not ours, though we like to
claim them. They defy all our categories and present no passports as
they surf the winds across the world, sleeping in the high thin air,
their wings controlled by an alert half-brain.
Common swifts – a numerous but profoundly un-common bird – are
Charles Foster’s joy and obsession. The euphoria of their springtime
arrival gives way to such painful bereavement when they depart that he
tries to stay with them – manically, lyrically, scientifically – as they
travel, catching up with them in Mozambique, over the cliff-tops of
southern Spain, and as they mingle with worshippers at the Western Wall
in Jerusalem.
Fiercely rejecting the idea that swifts are ‘just’ birds – indeed that anything is ‘just’ anything – The Screaming Sky
is a radical engagement with the infinite complexity of a species. It
steps back, looks to the skies, and stands in awe of these magnificent
birds.
The only place I've lived and been able to see swifts all summer was during our year in the very small Ipswich bungalow. Looking up almost anytime they were always about - there must have been good high nesting places in town. At the smallholding and at Clay Cottage they could be spotted occasionally but never everyday through the summer. Here in the village there are some that use an old pub for nesting and I've seen them several times when walking down that road.
I should think they've left early this summer to fly south - the weather has been horrible. As I type this it is 14℃ and raining. At the moment it sounds good to be a swift and follow the summer!
An interesting read and as I often say................thank goodness for the library......otherwise I wouldn't have read it.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
They used to nest in one of the old barns on the farm - I haven't seen one since I left - I do miss them.
ReplyDeleteI love swifts. I see them here in Cornwall where they nest in roof of the local church. Sadly not many. The first time I saw them in any numbers though was in Saxmundham. They used to come screaming overhead while I was at the station. Fabulous. An unmistakable sound; I often here it in films and tv programs, and wonder if they have added the sound or whether there really were swifts flying as they were filming.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen ours for a few weeks now. Like you I assume they have gone for the year.
We have had them hawking overhead all summer long. They nest down in the town but come up on our hill to feed. They have brought me such joy, with their scimitar-like wings and the females screaming overhead. 20 or so at a time. Now they have gone (they normally leave early August). I saw 5 the day before yesterday but think they were birds from further North, heading southwards and feeding as they go.
ReplyDeleteI am dreading the day when the Swallows leave, and then the House Martins - they both nest here and have been giving delight all summer long.
What I love about the swifts is the squealing as they fly through the sky looking like they are playing catch-me games. This is the first house I have lived in with a small swift colony. They leave after breeding which means they only stay a short while and they leave in late July/early August. I am missing them. On warm summer evenings they fly low but this hasn't happened this year.
ReplyDeleteI think that there are swift’s in Hertfordshire but not so much in the part that we live ! We see swallows and now see lots of red kites which is a lovely sight. I also love seeing flocks of swans flying g over ( sorry ….. went slightly off bird subject ! ) XXXX
ReplyDeleteI like watching the birds and we have a good bird population, but no Swifts. When reading about Swifts they are described by some as acrobats. Watching swifts fly in groups must be fascinating.
ReplyDeleteLibraries are wonderful for broadening ones range of reading, aren't they?
ReplyDeletexx
Looks like an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.