Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky

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I was sucked very quickly into the novel even before the main story/murder because the characters are so fiercely realized from the first page. The Wainwright Prize is one that I’ve ended up following closely almost by accident, simply because I tend to read most of the nature books released in the UK in any given year. The Swifts is a wickedly humorous, action-packed whodunnit with the most brilliant opening that perfectly captures the quirky playfulnes.

I saved this book for the season of swifts and I'm glad I did as I could read whilst listening to the screeching birds fly past each evening. Each of them tries to outdone the others in terms of their antagonism towards environmental protections, which they see as obstacles to progress. A mixture of personal reflection, natural history and case studies, ranging far afield as do the swift’s themselves. Quiet as it’s kept” (a quote from the opening line of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye) is borrowed in a poem in No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies by Julian Aguon and one in the anthology American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide, ed.I was entirely unable to put it down, I’ve been talking it up to all my friends and coworkers, and I’m hugely excited to see it find readers because the world needs creative, humorous, inclusive novels like this, not just for kids but for everyone.

Narratively, none of these family pairings are seen as lesser than a quote-unquote traditional one; a few of the extended Family challenge Cook’s position, but their attitude is very much checked and rejected by the core unit. As a fun bonus, I learned some new words with this book, but I barely noticed it because I learned them through meeting a family of lovable weirdos; that’s way more fun than a vocabulary lesson. Equally reliant on argument and epiphany, the book has more to say about human–animal interactions in one of its essays than some whole volumes manage.Also how they are being attracted to buildings with swift boxes, as man is again stopping them from nesting as all the exterior nooks and crannies are filled in by us to keep warm. Despite this book, I have linked up with a local swift group and am looking to fit some swift boxes to my house and looking forward to the prospect of some 'bangers' next year. I liked the authors narrative, easy-going and humble, writing as an observer and swift enthusiast (or as she might say, a swifting person) rather than a self-proclaimed expert. During such periods, they sometimes form temporary roosts, gathering in protected areas in buildings. For centuries, common thinking was that they hibernate rather than migrate (which would make them the only birds ever to have done so).

For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. Sarah Gibson works for Shropshire Wildlife Trust, an environmental charity, as Press Officer as well as Editor of the members’ magazine. I also think he attempts too much, in terms of both literary strategy and subject matter (see the second part of the subtitle), and so loses focus.It doesn’t have much in common with The Swifts beyond being a little on the older side of young readers, but it’s still a very excellent book. Best of all, we think ‘our’ birds that nested in the space between the roof and rear gutter last year are back.

This new title in the celebrated Nature Storybook series is packed with interesting facts to inspire a love of the natural world. When she isn't writing, Beth is woodcarving, or making a mess of her flat, or talking the nearest ear off about unexplained occurrences. It didn’t bode well when, on page three, Gibson explained that her swift spotting group always went home when the bats appeared as the emergence of the bats is ‘a cross over point after which you seldom see a swift’. Reading two feminist works of historical fiction in which the protagonist refuses to marry (even though it’s true love) at the same time: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and Madwoman by Louisa Treger (about Nellie Bly). They weigh just 40g but have a wingspan of 42-49cm; a human would need arms 800 metres long to match the weight to width ratio.An essential book for anyone who loves Swifts, a bird so evolved for doing what it does best (flying long distances at high speed) that it would never need to land again after fledging if it wasn’t for the business of raising chicks. This is a bird which is on the wing most of its life, like no other (except the Common Swift, not so common these days, is just one of over 100 swift species in the world) and it visits us in May and June, with bits of April, quite a lot of July and some of August. I skimmed this book over the course of two springs and learned that the screaming parties you may, if you are lucky, see tearing down your street are likely to be made up of one- or two-year-old birds. Nest materials are acquired in flight; therefore only materials light enough to be lofted high into the air are used.