Sometimes we don't need to travel to faraway jungles or deserts to find prodigious animals; marvellous creatures can live round the corner, we just have to pay a little attention or look up in the sky to find them. But first, a little quiz:
What is it that...
- Eats, drinks, mates and sleeps in the air?
- After leaving the nest for their first time, will keep flying non-stop for three years?
- Migrates as far as South Africa for winter?
- Gathers insects in their throats for their chicks, carrying as many as 1,000 at once?
Well, it is a bird, of course, and it lives in almost every town of our country from May to July:
It is the Swift, a dark-feathered arrow that crosses the air above our roofs at nearly 90km/h., managing to eat tons of mosquitoes and other bugs in their whole summer stay over these parts.
You didn't know it was there?. Today's evening, when the sun starts to set, just lift your eyes and you will probably see and hear a group of these flying little wonders screaming and chasing each other at racing speed.
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| Picture: RSPB |
You can listen to them here:
No need to mention that they are tremendously beneficial due to the many insects they gulp every day and thus are strictly protected by law, but these reasons fade away once you have spent a few minutes watching them fly and cut the air over your heads. Make sure you have the opportunity to enjoy this, since they will start to fly towards Africa at the end of July, it's a long journey there. Next year they'll be back in town by the beginning of May, and some of them will not have stopped flying since they left a year before.
Where to see them? Very easy, they have always been there: over the pond at S. Francisco campus (they nest in some of the University buildings), at Coso Bajo St., around the stone bridge over the Ebro, screaming madly in the evening...
This video was captured in May 2011 in Zaragoza. In spite of the bad quality and the little size, you can still hear and see the swifts flying over the river at dusk (they are the tiny black spots that cross the screen). Video by E.G.
However, they can be in trouble: as their whole existence except nesting happens in the air, they are hopeless on the ground. When a juvenile swift abandons the nest to start its adult life, it has only one opportunity to survive, because if it can't manage to fly away and falls to the ground, it will never be able to take off again: its wings are very long and its legs are very weak. Without assistance, it will die. It is not uncommon to see fallen swifts on the streets so if you happen to find one of them grounded and still alive, you can do this. Even if that doesn't work and you don't want the little chick to die away, you can take it to La Alfranca, where they will look after it and help it fly again.
You can learn more about Swifts by clicking here.
Well, I could be writing about swifts for days on end, since I can't think of a most wondrous animal than this, but I think I'd better stop writing now and go out to see some swifts...
Well, I could be writing about swifts for days on end, since I can't think of a most wondrous animal than this, but I think I'd better stop writing now and go out to see some swifts...
