THE skies over Belfast are silent once more. The screaming swifts have disappeared – for them, our summer is over.

We might think it’s still warm outside, but swifts know better. Temperatures are gradually falling and there’s just not enough flies high up in the sky for them to eat. When you’re such an amazing flier there’s no reason to hang about. Head south, and the insects will increase with every degree of heat.

The peregrine falcon is the fastest creature on earth – but that’s when it’s using gravity to dive on prey, when it can reach 240mph. That’s like saying the fastest person on earth isn’t the winner of the Olympic 100 metres, but a guy falling from a plane with no parachute!

We really should give the fastest bird accolade to the swift – when flying horizontally under its own power it beats the rest hands down, hitting a steady 70mph.

At that speed, these birds are able to get from Belfast to Paris in just 10 hours. As soon as their chicks are fledged, they’re off. Why hang around here when you could be in sunny France before nightfall?

Swifts were only here for 100 days – and we won’t see (or hear) them again until, on average, next May 5.

It was another near miss for Dúlra in terms of attracting the gabhlán gaoithe to his house. Swift numbers have plummeted because they constantly lose nest sites as roofs are repaired and old buildings demolished. They don’t find it easy to find a new home – for a bird that even sleeps in the air, there’s so much peril involved in landing. They are so aerodynamic that they can’t even take off from the ground – they need elevation.
Dúlra once found one sitting on the grass in his back garden – it must have hit a telephone line. It couldn’t fly away – but was totally unhurt. Dúlra picked it up and, after admiring its long, curved wings and tiny feet tucked under its body, he threw it up in the air – and off it went.

This year Dúlra blasted swift screeches from the bedroom window – sorry neighbours! – and for a fortnight in late July he had a swarm of birds zooming around the house.
When you see them at such close quarters, jetting past the window, you realise that they really are the world’s fastest bird.
 
They often brushed against the three nestboxes, but didn’t go inside. They don’t know what they’ll find on the other side of any crevice – if it opens on to flat ground, they’re finished. It really is a life-or-death decision.

Birds bang against a potential nest site in the knowledge that if it’s occupied, the other swifts will aggressively scream.

Dúlra only hopes that the birds who banged on the boxes will store those memories and return next May in confidence and go straight inside.

Dúlra’s estate has no breeding swifts at all – maybe there are just no cavities for them. But many of the neighbouring estates have pairs – with Gransha being a particular hotspot.

Our other insect-eating birds, swallows and house martins, are still here, however. These birds raise two broods, so they can’t go until that second brood is reared.

It’s a mystery to Dúlra why swallows and house martins lay an average of five eggs each time and swifts have a single brood of two or three – but it means swifts have even more reason to be super careful about where to nest.

It’s the fourth year since swift supremo Mark Smyth put the swift boxes up on Dúlra’s house – and each year swifts get that wee bit closer to moving in. Dúlra’s very hopeful about 2027 – he just has to be patient for another 245 days!

* If you’ve seen or photographed anything interesting, you can text Dúlra on 07801 414804.