Members of Keswick Swifts have been caught out by the early arrival of the summer visitors from Africa.
The birds began flying back into the town on Sunday and reports of the first arrivals have been coming in from people monitoring swift colonies up and down the country since the weekend.
Nicki Baker, of the Keswick Swifts group, said numbers arriving are unusually high for early returners, and in many places they have been recorded earlier than ever before.
Keswick Swifts suggest that this spring’s exceptionally warm and dry weather is likely to be the principal reason for their early return, and hope the weather will last, to give the birds a much better breeding season than last year.
Swifts catch all their food – a variety of flying insects and floating spiders – while on the wing, but insects generally seek shelter when it rains and cannot be caught by swifts in wet conditions.
“In this early part of the swifts’ season, it is mature breeding adults that come first,” said Nicki. “They will have found and reserved a nest site for themselves in a previous summer, in a hole in a wall or under the eaves of a suitable building, and accessed by a surprisingly small gap.
“They will have perfected the skill of flying directly into the access hole without hurting themselves, and will be depending on getting access to this particular nest site, for a good rest, as soon as they arrive after a fast and tiring flight up from Africa.
“It is only in their nest sites that they ever land and rest – their legs aren’t built for normal standing, perching, walking or running.
“Once home, they will wait at the nest site for the arrival of the mate with whom they paired up in a previous year, but that they won’t have seen since last summer.
“Then once they’ve got used to each other again – and used to the unfamiliar feelings of being stationary, and on their feet, not on the wing – they will get on with mating and starting this year’s family.”
Not every pair of birds will have a happy homecoming. Some may find their nest site has been blocked off or lost to building repairs; and in some cases, the nest may have been occupied by another, more dominant bird. Some birds will fail to return from migration; and their mates will in due course need to look for another partner, and perhaps another nest site.
For anyone who has a vacant swift box or swift brick on their property, Keswick Swifts advise that now is a good time to start using swift callers, morning and evening, to attract any birds needing to find somewhere new to nest.
“By the end of May, and throughout June and into July, we expect to see more Swifts arrive,” said Nicki. “These will be younger adult birds – not yet breeding, but coming back to learn the skills of recognising, approaching and flying straight into suitable nest holes – an amazing feat, that takes months of practice!
“These birds may well take an interest in vacant swift bricks and boxes and, once they’ve mastered the trick of getting into it, may consider one of them to be their own personal domain, to which they will return next year, when they’ll have matured and be ready to pair up and start breeding.”
