29th June to 7th July 2024 is Swift Awareness Week and we celebrated with a Swift Walk around central Marlow on 1st July.
When we met at 7.30pm, we still had the decidedly cool, grey weather that had persisted all day. This was not promising swift-watching weather, as swifts definitely like hot sunny days and beautiful warm, summer evenings for their most spectacular social aerobatic displays.
However….. despite all this, we had some great views of small parties swifts when they came down from time to time to do sporadic bursts of roof-top-level formation flying. Even five or six swifts together in low-level ’screaming-party mode’ make an exciting display and never fail to impress by their sheer speed and exuberance.
The sky unexpectedly cleared towards 9pm producing some lovely gold sunset colour, and we continued to see small numbers of swifts. Here are two photos by Jon Perry of a swift just coming out of a fabulous swoop by the bus shelter at Quoitings Square and about to zoom up over the rooftops in West Street during one of the full-speed fly-pasts we were treated to.
Catherine Day – July 2024
