The Swift family
On Saturday morning our house awoke to the sound of silence for the first time in months. This could only mean one thing - the family of swifts that have been living outside of our bedroom window have set off on their migration back to Africa.
Since arriving to their summer home in our roof eave in May, the swifts have been noisy, early rising visitors with no qualms about sharing their overexcited screeches with the world at 4am. But despite wanting to kill them on more than one post-late-night-at-the-pub occassion, I have grown rather fond of them.
Over the past 3 months I have watched the parents go hunting, heard the noise double in decibels as their eggs hatched and demanded feeding, and marvelled as the family dived around the skies.
And now they’re gone. They’re off on their 22,000 kilometre journey to Southern Africa where they won’t touch the ground all Winter. I hope that they make it and are back safely next summer.