WINTER’S WILDLIFE Alpine nomad back for a visit
Anglers love to tell whoppers about the mythical river monsters that got away. And twitchers can be equally fanciful when recounting close encounters of the bird kind.
Ornithological archives bulge with accounts of rarities rejected by records committees because they stretched the limits of credibility.
I have one such tale to tell. Back in my fledgling days as a birder in the early 1980s, I joined our local RSPB group on a trip to the Forest of the Dean with dreams of seeing pied flycatchers, redstarts and wood warblers.
Sitting on the back seat of the coach with the rest of the excited young guns, I spotted the distinctive shape of a swift providing a close quarters escort.
Suddenly, it banked and displayed the white belly of an alpine swift, a rare and legendary wanderer from the mountain ranges of southern Europe.
The sheer adrenalin rush left me speechless.
Alpine swifts make an incredible sight with their dramatic flight pattern propelled by wings that span 23ins tip to tip. They are three times the bulk of a common swift.
By the time the incredulity and excitement quelled, the swift was long gone. I knew everyone on the coach would think I was fabricating the encounter so I stayed schtum rather than get labelled a “stringer” – someone who makes up sightings of rare birds.
I would have to wait until 2010 to see another alpine swift on British soil, part of a mass influx of these nomadic wanders that year.
This spring we are witnessing another such invasion. Lucky observers have been reporting these impressive birds along the North Sea and English Channel coastlines as well as at several inland sites.
By far the greatest concentration has been in Ireland, where nine birds were spotted flying over a small coastal town near Dublin.
Experts believe alpine swifts seen in March originate from the Iberian peninsula, while those arriving later in spring are more likely to come from more easterly European mountain ranges.
With a 23ins wingspan they are three times bigger than our swifts