Photo by Philip Ackermann on Pexels.com

The swallows have been back a while; swooping over the lane, picking insects from the air above the village stream. They are quick: a beat of wings and acrobatics, the flash of white and orange. The house martins too are back; building their spit and mud nests under the eaves of the boarded up pub. They’ve been back and forth outside my office window, deciding if they are going to build there. A thin line of brown mud has appeared. They chatter incessantly, argue between themselves about who knows what. And now they have gone again, presumably they have found a better place to nest, one where there isn’t a woman constantly leaving out of the window to look at them.

But it’s the swifts I’ve been missing. I am lucky in that my twitter time line is full of other nature enthusiasts, and…