Swifts

[TonTonMacoute]

I have pleased to notice that we are seeing more swifts this year than I can remember for a while. We have a large barn and they nest there.

For the last few years we usually see a couple of pairs arrive in spring, then maybe 6 or 8 by the time they new ones have fledged. This year we are regularly seeing 8, often 10 or 12 and this evening there are more - maybe 20 but it's very hard to count. They are currently zooming around having a screaming party. The noise is astonishing.

And this is my sunset for shits and giggles

Yeah we have a ton here this year (in an urban area in the south East)

The hot weather has brought many young birds our way.

Haven't even had flying ant day yet! They'll go mad when we do.

We have about 20 doing a fly past most evenings....love to see them ❤️ urban area east midlands. We get a lot of swifts ,❤️

There seems to be a lot more this year. Lots of screaming parties overhead in my bit of the SE. Joined the local Swift group recently, lots of great info and putting up boxes.

We have significantly fewer than previous years. The evenings would be full of screaming birds in the past, this year only about 2 families of 4.

We have significantly more here too, I love watching them and listening to their evening gatherings.

I’ve been feeding them but seem to have attracted a large brown rat which I could do without.

Still, I did see a stoat yesterday afternoon while on a bike ride with DD.

Thanks for this @TonTonMacoute . I didn’t actually know this part of MN existed!

How do you feed swifts?

You can't really. All you can do is encourage flying insects by gardening organically and planting lots of native flowers.