Swift – a good omen
A bird flew into my flat the other evening. I’d been out having dinner with my friend Steve. It was Midsummer and we were celebrating. I left the windows open.
We arrive back at my flat at about 11.30 pm, walk up the stairs, and find a black, feathery creature lying like a crumpled black bag on the middle landing. At first I think it is dead, then notice that it has started moving slightly.
My cat is nowhere to be seen. Steve finds a cardboard box. The bird struggles as we try to get it in, scampering to a corner and trying to climb the wall, but it doesn’t fly.
After a bit, Steve manages to get it in the container. Once in the box, the bird soon settles. We both whisper reassuring sounds and, surprisingly, it does calm down.
There is no lid on the box, so it could escape easily, but it simply clutches the edge, looking around, its little dark grey head poking out. We take it down the stairs and out of the front door. I assume the poor creature might have broken a wing, so maybe can’t fly. Perhaps the cat has damaged it.
We’re just down the front steps and onto the pavement, when the bird has a look around and suddenly takes off into the night sky, so quick!
I knew it was a swift because I’ve seen lots of them outside my bedroom window this summer. My bedroom is four floors up and the window looks out onto the branches of a large tree. The birds zoom around this tree and into my roof, where they’ve been building their nests in the eaves. It’s an old Victorian, or possibly Georgian house, so it has ample space for the birds to roost.
The swifts go so fast they look like they’re flying straight into my window and I think they’re going to crash, but then they turn just in time and zoom up into the roof. Incidentally, they seem to be sharing this space quite peacefully with the sparrows.
The swifts fly around in the morning, shrieking demonically. Indeed, they were once known as the ‘devil bird’ for this very reason. I watch them soaring across the sky. They’re very beautiful birds, with such amazing flying design.
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https://jofisherroberts.substack.com/p/the-swift-a-good-omen
