I was rather pleased with the composition of this picture when I took it in Sadaani National Park in Tanzania in 2010. It shows two vultures doing what vultures seem to spend most of their time doing, which is to sit high in a preferably dead, leafless tree and do.... nothing. But I was even more pleased with it when I noticed an intruder in my composition, a swift, so when I wrote about vultures in a post back in March 2021 - see post here - I pointed out that this could have been a British swift as the furthest point on their migration route is Tanzania.
We never saw swifts in our years on the west coast of Scotland - it's probably too wet for them - so, when we moved down to Felixstowe, we were rather pleased to renew their acquaintance. We were as pleased when, moving up to Golspie, we found them here - but only one very small group of about three birds. This year, while we've had fleeting glimpses of what might have been a high-flying swift, I really couldn't put my hand on my heart and swear I've seen one.
The common swift's breeding population status in the UK is now red because, according to the British Trust for Ornithology's website, it has suffered "Recent Severe Breeding Population Decline". That decline has been sudden and steep: as recently as the early 2000s their status was green and until 2020 it was amber. In 2016 there were estimated to be around 60,000 pairs in Britain, so one wonders how many are breeding here this summer.
They are spectacular birds. To give one example of their extraordinary capabilities, swifts are birds which only land to nest, so a young swift may fly 300,000 miles non-stop between fledging late one summer and first landing at a potential nest site two summers later.
And we are in danger of losing this bird from our skies.
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