Swifts Leaving Early
July 19, 2026 · 3 min read
I count the swifts every evening in July from the back step, between about nine and half past, when they come low over the roofs in screaming parties. It is the easiest count of the year because they announce themselves. On 9 July I had 23 birds in a single pass. On 15 July, 11. Tonight, 19 July, four, and they were high and quiet, which usually means they are feeding rather than socialising and that the local breeders have already thinned out.
My notebook for the last three years has the big drop happening in the first week of August: 2023 on 4 August, 2024 on 2 August, 2025 on 6 August. This year it is a full fortnight early. I do not know why. We had a wet, cold spell in late June that will not have helped the insect supply, and a run of very hot days since that may have pushed the birds to finish quickly. I am guessing. What I can say is that the date is in the book and I will see what next year does.
Down at the river the picture is the usual July one. The sand martins are still working the bank by the weir, perhaps fifteen birds, in and out of a dozen holes in the sandy cut on the far side. The grey wagtail pair that nested under the footbridge have fledged at least two young, which I saw on the stones below the weir this morning, bobbing and still faintly streaky on the breast. A kingfisher went through twice in twenty minutes, both times upstream, both times too fast for anything but the colour.
In the garden it is the quiet time. The feeders are barely touched; there is too much natural food about. A family of blue tits, five or six young in dull yellow, work the apple tree for aphids most mornings. The blackbirds have gone silent and secretive, which means they are moulting in the hedge bottom. Two wood pigeons sit on the fence and look at nothing.
Weather today: 26 °C at six in the evening, no wind, high haze. The swallows over the paddock behind the house are still here in good numbers and show no sign of going. It is only the swifts that are in a hurry.