Life on the Wing

We were in Italy two years ago, and one of the things that most stands out in my mind from our visit to Rome is the sight and sound of thousands of swifts in the air over the city. I particularly remember sitting high up in the Castel Sant'Angelo watching them at eye level swooping and zooming around with a few house martins, always with that shrill, screaming call. Since then the sound of swifts always evokes a Roman heatwave in my memory! We have them nesting in our row of tenements and others nearby, and I was determined to blip them at some point! This isn't a great shot, sorry - they're too quick for the autofocus to find them, and when they're directly overhead, or thereabouts, too quick for me to find them on manual.

They really are incredible birds. Check out that site, and follow the links, for loads of great info. They only ever land when they're sitting on the nest, ill, or dead. They gather nest-building materials in the air. They sleep flying. It really is life on the wing.