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IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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A thread dedicated to the joy of first sighting a swift over the City of Edinburgh each year and knowing that the summer migrants are all here.
Not a competition, just a place to share that feeling when your heart skips a beat at the sight of a tiny black crescent or the sound of otherworldly aerial screeching.
Also a thread for sharing the sadness of realising that the swifts have gone, but we'll come to that later shall we?
Think spotted a couple in Mallorca last weekend and they said they would be here next weekend if I understood their shrieking
The blue skies lie empty. Scan the heavens.
According to a tweet to @birdinglothian yesterday there was one over Byres Hill in East Lothian. They’re almost here!
Seen what was either a swift or a swallow on the wol path at Murrayfield.
I saw either a swift or a swallow on Long Dalmahoy Road on Sunday.
The best thing about Duns is that the swifts scream through the streets like hooligans all summer evening long.
We mark our first swift sighting on our calendar. If they're consistent (and the last 3 years suggest they are) they'll be in central Edinburgh in 6 to 8 days' time.
My earliest sighting was on the 4th of May. I don't know what year but I was on the way to primary school in Aberdeen.
I am a long-term Swiftwatcher™ but a very poor record keeper.
I love watching swifts. We often get a nest in the eaves of our house, which is nice, except that the boys en-suite always stinks the years the nest is occupied, and the side path is always covered in their mess.
Swallows, House Martins and Sand Martins over the Figgate early AM today, but no Swifts as yet. I'm off work these two days, and much of that time will be spent looking skyward (as well as hoping for an early Cuckoo call - bolstered by the reports of them in the Pentlands already).
EDIT: There's a tenement building on Brighton Place heading down to Porty that gets nesting Swifts by the score, so I'll be watching there with interest as well. Though not with the camera, as it's at the back, and pointing a big lens at a bit of the building where all of the bathrooms are located might be considered by some to be a little creepy. "I was watching the Swifts officer...."
Just wear one of those bepocketed body warmers and draw the RSPB logo on your forehead.
Air cool, skies bereft.
DA Vinci prog on bbc4 last night. Florence. Swifts
Still cool. Bright blue skies with towering herring gulls through which powered a sparrowhawk on a mission.
No swifts.
Some herons and swallows down Innerleithen way today. Nothing inbetween
Le Martinet - René Char
Le Martinet aux ailes trop larges, qui vire et crie sa joie autour de la maison. Tel est le coeur.
Il dessèche le tonnerre. Il sème dans le ciel serein. S´il touche au sol, il se déchire.
Sa repartie est l´hirondelle. Il déteste la familière. Que vaut dentelle de la tour ?
Sa pause est au creux le plus sombre. Nul n´est plus à l´étroit que lui.
L´été de la longue clarté, il filera dans les ténèbres, par les persiennes de minuit.
Il n´est pas d´yeux pour le tenir. Il crie, c´est toute sa présence. Un mince fusil va l´abattre. Tel est le coeur.
The Swift
The swift, with wings too long, screaming its joy around the houses. Such is the heart.
It dessicates thunder. It seeds the tranquil sky. If it touches down it rips open.
Its patter is the swallow. It hates the everyday. What price the tower's lace?
Its rest is in the darkest crack. No snugger fit than he.
On long summer evenings he streaks into darkness through the midnight blinds.
No eye can hold on to it. Its cry is its whole presence. A slim rifle will bring it down. Such is the heart.
French name for the swift is very good. Obviously so is the English name. Like that poem
Swifts will be turning back to Morocco if this weather persists.
Tempted to join them...
So the French call the swift "un martinet" but then a housemartin "hirondelle de fenêtre", which literally translates to "window swallow"
Confusing.
Spotted either a pair of swifts, swallows or housemartins (can't tell) in the canal bridge concrete beams, where the A71 crosses the canal near bridge 8.
Edit after watching video - probably not a swift - either swallows or housemartins
The swifts are back!
Three of them spotted over the eastern New Town this morning.
Oh joy. Watch the skies.
The excellent canopy resolutely empty still.
surprised by an arctic tern on FRB this morning
Swifts tearing up the sky over Berlin this morning as we breakfasted on the top floor of the moderately quirky Hotel Otto.
There might have been a swift under the table at Summerhall last night?
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