Extraordinary bird
This summer visitor breeds across the UK but most numerously in the south and east. Look high in the sky for excited screaming parties of them. They winter in Africa.
It was one of those moments when nature takes you by the scruff of the neck, unsettles you and reminds you how savage and alien it can be. And it took place in a churchyard in rural Dorset, on ground where the Bluebells were so dense and overwhelming that they might as well have been singing. My senses were happily drinking in this sweet spring over-ripe abundance, and I wasn’t prepared for reality interrupting it.
However, some players in a dark drama were determined to disturb the loveliness. A pair of Carrion Crows were pecking at something on the ground, as shifty as feral teenagers. But that is hardly unusual, and it was only when I realised that a pair of Magpies were active nearby that it became clear something sinister was going on. They were attacking a bird. This was a near-midsummer murder attempt – a murder of crows, no less.
I intervened – of course I did. I chased the Magpies away and soon realised that they were assaulting a Swift. It was flailing on the ground, in clear distress, although still alive. There was no blood, but the Swift was at the very least dazed, and there was some evidence that it was neurologically compromised. Either way, the unfortunate creature was weakened and vulnerable. I picked it up, folded its wings in and placed it in a box in the church porch. It looked as though it would expire at any moment.
This, a cameo that occurred a short time ago, was the only occasion I have ever handled a Swift. In those brief moments, the shock of the savagery exacted upon the Swift gave way to the sheer realisation of just how singularly extraordinary this bird is, something magnified close up.
Personally, my biggest surprise was to experience the grasp of the Swift’s feet. Back in the day, all the books would tell you that the feet of Swifts were so small
SHOULD BE REMEMBERED THAT MANY ALSO
SLEEP AT THE NEST SITE
and insignificant that the scientific name of the family was Apodidae (a-pod=no feet). Other technical books explained that Swifts were unique for having four toes facing the same way, forwards, an arrangement described as ‘pamprodactyl’.
Well, you only have to handle a Swift for a short time to debunk both those myths. While I was trying to manoeuvre it into the box, the Swift gripped my finger so tightly that it made a lasting mark with its claws, although it didn’t quite draw blood. It also
clearly held on with two toes facing forward and two pointing back (apparently dead Swift specimens naturally set with four toes pointing forwards.)
Every account of Swifts that you read marvels at their aerial lifestyle, but we need to remember that, for about a month of the year, they are incubating eggs or brooding chicks on a solid surface, be that a crevice, a ledge, an old bird nest or a specially designed Swift box. Furthermore, they are also fully capable of roosting on vertical surfaces, particularly when the weather is bad. They are acquainted with more than fresh air.
Indeed, one of the Swift’s most famous aerial stunts, one frequently put forward as the ultimate in adaptations for their lifestyle, is their ability to copulate in the air. What people forget is that, regardless of this ability, Swifts routinely mate at the nest site and this is surely the normal way of doing it – you would think that the fertilisation rate would be higher on solid ground. However, there is no doubt that Swifts come together in the air sometimes – there is a special and rather wonderful display that culminates in one bird mounting another, albeit briefly, in flight – and it has been suggested that these might be lightning quick liaisons between individuals that are paired to somebody else.
Swifts also, famously, sleep on the wing, but once again it should be remembered that many also sleep at the nest site. They build a nest on a solid surface, compacting what they might catch in the air – an
WHERE TO SEE THEM
itinerant piece of hay, perhaps, a feather or other flying flotsam – with copious amount of saliva, making a shallow cup. Their aerial mastery cannot be doubted, but they are not one-trick ponies. We need to grasp what they can grasp.
That said, any moment trying to save a stricken Swift also alerts you to those amazing wings. I might have been surprised by the Swift’s claws, but the wings were simply magnificent, evoking awe rather than shock. It is no coincidence that these limbs are sometimes described as sabre-shaped, because close to they look like weapons. You can imagine challenging somebody to a duel with them and threatening to smite your opponent. Those wings of wonder, with their supreme sharp points, are what makes Swifts special, and also somewhat alien.
Swifts are related to Hummingbirds, and like those titches they have greatly reduced arms and extended digits, meaning that
they effectively fly with their fingers. The slightest twitch from a finger helps them to dial-in on a flying insect and snatch it with their bill.
People often think that Swifts simply graze, open-jawed, through the insect-laden summer skies, but the reality is quite different and far more impressive. Every insect or other invertebrate is seized individually. Swifts have evolved to ply the skies with wondrous precision. There are few birds that are so entertaining to watch. Observe a Black-tailed Godwit or some such probing in the watery mud, or watch a sparrow peck at seeds, and the thrill wears off. But you could never tire of watching the twists, turns, sweeps and careening movements of a foraging Swift.
Flights of fancy
Those wings are so efficient at keeping Swifts aloft that they are indeed able to accommodate moments of sleep. It isn’t quite sleep as we know it, perhaps little more than naps caught on the breeze, as the bird gradually descends. And even the snatches of sleep are only literally half-sleeps because, amazingly, a Swift rests only half its brain at a time, keeping the other awake. It would take quite a flight of the imagination to perceive what that might be like, napping on the gentle zephyrs of the short summer night, half-asleep, half-awake. Would a Swift dream and, if so, what about?
And talk about flights of fancy, what about the Swift’s astonishing migration? After breeding, it goes south to whisk over the western coast of Africa, down into the Congo basin, where it spends some weeks, doubtless eating flying insects unknown to us and undescribed by scientists.
Not content with such a ‘short’ hop, it then travels east to take advantage of seasonal insect swarms as far as the eastern coast of Africa, in northern Mozambique. A British Swift could spend our late autumn over the Indian Ocean.
For now, though, my own Swift’s prospects had been severely threatened. After half an hour it seemed to have recovered a little, and even called to its mate. I dared to hope. Once again, its grip on me was strong – actually, it hurt.
It was a windy day. I took the Swift to the highest point I could find. Releasing its grip, I threw it up into the air, knowing that at worst it would make an embarrassing landing. Hope lifted as it caught a breeze and whirled upwards, looking, it must be said, more like a learner flier rather than a supreme master of the air. After a few circuits it came to rest near the top of the church’s tower, hopelessly out of reach. I cannot tell you its fate. Nature is marvellous, but its flipside is brutal, the two separated by less than a flick of the wings.
My story starts on World Migratory Bird Day in May, appropriately enough. We had gone for our usual ‘lockdown exercise walk’ on the Great Orme, Llandudno, a wonderful limestone headland that provides either feast or famine, a plethora of exciting birds or a quiet walk unsullied by much birdlife. Today was looking on the quieter end of the spectrum, until we reached the limestone pavement at the furthest point of our walk.
It was the movement that caught our eye first, the distinctive run, stop, run, stop behaviour favoured by all members of the plover family, birds that find their food by eye. Lifting our binoculars, we saw one of our favourite plovers of all: Dotterel! One bird would have been exciting. Dotterel don’t breed here, but make an occasional appearance on the Great Orme as they migrate north to their breeding grounds on the Arctic tundra, so we do see a Dotterel making a stopover here most springs or autumns. But we didn’t have just one bird today, we had eight glorious Dotterel scurrying around on the exposed rock of the limestone pavement.
The perfect ‘trip’, that being the collective noun for Dotterel. We sat down quietly so as not to spook the birds, but we needn’t have worried. Someone who is silly and easily duped is said to be a dotterel, so perhaps that means these birds are particularly confiding and easily caught. Our octet certainly lived up to their name as they pottered closer and closer to us, concentrating on finding food, rather than worrying about two quietly ecstatic birdwatchers.
Dotterels are handsome birds. They have the upright posture and bright button eyes common to all plovers, and are strikingly plumaged, sporting a bold white supercilium which meets round the back of the head, a white mayor’s chain and an orange chest which darkens to black on the belly. Some of the birds were more brightly plumaged than others; clearly, we had a mix of males and females in the group, but not necessarily in the arrangement you might expect.
Dotterels practise role-reversal, so unlike most bird species, it is the male who incubates the eggs rather than the female.
Once she has laid the clutch of eggs, usually four in a nest that is little more than a scrape on the open ground, the male settles down to incubate them for around 26-28 days. Because of this, he is the less colourful of the two, so he can blend in with his surroundings while on the nest.
Second clutch
The female may incubate for a few days at the outset but then she flies off, maybe to a completely different area, leaving the male and the eggs to their own devices. She, on the other hand, is likely to seek out another male to mate and lay a second clutch of eggs, and may even repeat this a third time. So, her plumage is more brightly coloured and boldly marked.
We’ve been lucky enough to see Dotterel on their Arctic breeding grounds when we’ve been birdwatching in northern Norway in June. High above the treeline, the open tundra of the fjells around Båtsfjord stretches for mile after mile of seemingly barren landscape. Among bare rocks, the thin soil provides a toehold for
mosses, lichens, grasses, wildflowers, and prostrate bushes interspersed with shallow bogs and pools.
On a landscape scale it may look bleak and empty, but seen in close-up, these tiny slow-growing plants are stunning, and the area is in fact teeming with life, especially huge numbers of insects. This makes it the perfect nursery for rearing chicks and the reason why so many birds, including Dotterel, migrate here each spring to breed.
We were out birdwatching in Norway after supper – this far north the sun never sets in midsummer, so it’s wonderful to enjoy more birds in the evenings. The weather conditions were incredible, not a breath of wind and the sun blazing from a cobalt sky, so we took a walk along a stony track that led to who-knows-where over the horizon. It was glorious to be out in the fresh air and surrounded by pristine habitat, no other humans in sight. The still air carried
is one half of The Biggest Twitch team, and along with partner Alan Davies, set the then world record for most bird species seen in a year – 4,341, in 2008, an experience they wrote about in their book, The Biggest Twitch. Indeed, Ruth is still the female world record-holder! As well as her work as a tour leader, she is the author of the Birds, Boots and Butties books, on walking, birding and tea-drinking in North Wales, and previously worked as the RSPB’s head of trading. She lives in North Wales. sounds clearly, and we could hear a piping call coming from the top of the ridge, so we followed our ears.
As we approached, we could see a bird rising and circling in display, fluttering its wings shallowly and making that high-pitched piping call we’d heard from below: Dotterel. Then we saw another on the ground, and another and then a third. The more we looked, the more Dotterel we saw, males as well as females. We sat on the ground to watch the show as the bird, most likely a female, flew up and displayed repeatedly overhead.
As on the Great Orme, we sat still to merge into the landscape, for the Dotterel had other more urgent issues on their minds, even though they were only feet from us. It was thrilling to be so close to such unafraid birds and we couldn’t help but wonder whether these self-same birds might have even made a brief stopover in North Wales on their way to the Arctic tundra.
Back on the Great Orme, a pair of Chough flew right over us and our group of eight Dotterel, calling ‘ cheeough’ loudly to one other. Normally we’re glad to see these special red-billed corvids, but on this occasion, the interruption was too much for the Dotterel. With a series of chirrups and peeps, all eight birds took off, flying over the edge of the limestone pavement and out of sight. The Dotterel show was over. But I like to think of them arriving in northern Norway and putting on a display over the fjells, as another busy breeding season starts.