Swift (Explored)

During my lunch break I was told about a grounded Swift, near the electric fox fence on the grazing marsh.

 

Swifts are built for the air, spending their entire lives there, only touching down to build a nest. They spend the rest of their lives airborne.

 

The RSPB says: “Spends more time in flight than any other species and regularly sleeps on the wing at night when not nesting. Also feeds, drinks, gathers nest material and sometimes mates in flight.”

 

I went to the Wildside hide to have a look. At first I couldn't see anything but then glimpsed some flapping wings amongst the grass.

 

I scurried commando-style (not quite) out on to the marsh, trying not to disturb anything, and picked it up. It seemed dazed and weak, but I was amazed at how firmly it grasped my hand, with tiny, razor sharp little claws. I held my hand out to see if it would fly, but it just flopped onto the grass a couple of times. I could feel its tiny heart beating incredibly fast, probably from the stress of being on the ground. For such an aerial bird this stress would have been considerable. I decided it needed some care so took it back to the centre.

 

I looked online for some advice and found it at www.swift-conservation.org, the people who advised us about our Swift nest boxes that can be seen around the Observatory. They recommended putting it in a cardboard box on some paper towels, and leaving it in a cool, dark, quiet, safe place to recuperate.

 

I left it there for a couple of hours to calm down but its condition hadn’t changed much when I came back, and it seemed to be closing its eyes rather a lot. This was concerning as I’ve seen several birds in the past do this before they passed on.

 

One of our regular visitors, Martin, who also does moth trapping with us, was passing by so I asked him for any words of advice. I also asked him about the large tick I’d spotted at the back of the Swift’s neck. Martin, who works at the Natural History Museum, took out a test tube (no self-respecting entomologist is ever without one) and tried to coax the tick into the test tube.

 

Unsurprisingly, the tick was reluctant to be added to the collection, and scurried off around the Swift’s back. As we tried to nudge the tick off, the Swift became a lot more alert and started looking around. Slightly irritated at being disturbed from its doze in my hands, the Swift thought “Sod this!” and pushed itself out of my hands, took a couple of weak wing-beats, and was off to join its kind in the sky :-)

 

 

Done