Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last,” wrote Miguel de Cervantes. The creator of Don Quixote, one may be sure, did not know much about the swift and its ways. I remember watching every move of a brace of swifts that chose to nest in our home in the Nilgiris … under a sunshade to be more specific. Undisturbed as the nest remained, the swifts reappeared to occupy the abode of yesterseason, made of clay, dry weed and feather agglutinated with saliva into neat rows with just a slit between the nest and wall, for the entry of the parents.
The bird-book describes the swift’s nest as an ‘untidy affair’ but one can’t really agree to that! Or perhaps it was the bignonia creeper with its bright orange trumpet-shaped flowers that trailed over the roof and vivified the drabness, which made all the difference.The swift has been described as a small, smokey bird with a white throat and white rump, and with a short, squarish tail and long, narrow wings. And that is exactly how it is! Its food consists mainly of dipterous insects and the precision with which it nabs flies and midges in mid-air is an acrobatic feat worth a long watch.
Its rather quaintly structured feet with all toes directed forward enables it to grip on to rough surfaces with a tenacious hold, but it cannot settle on wires in the manner of a string of swallows that seem precariously perched, but not so. Swifts, however, halt most comfortably on flat surfaces and therefore, the sunshade above the French window made for an ideal landing place before the quick dash to the nest.
The swiftlings, my coinage, that hatched from a clutch of long, white and oval-shaped eggs were indeed hungry fellows and the parents seemed to exist for the sole purpose of feeding them. Even before a parent bird with a wriggling noodle in its beak could alight on the nest edge, little beaks yawned open to receive the fare. Chicks are marvellously toilet-trained from the very beginning, evidence of this being an unmessy nest, and the ground below, blobbed with droppings!
The first lessons in aviation are fascinating to watch; the apprehension to begin with when nestlings demur, the first short solo-flight, then the ecstatic wheeling accompanied by shrill twitters that escalate to strident peaks of excitement on discovering the powers of flight under a limitless expanse of sky. All of which brought not a little thrill to every beholder.