A rescued Swift

I have a watched my swift nestbox bricks as much as possible and feel sure that all four have been accessed by the birds. Sometimes they disappear through the hole immediately, other times they ‘miss’ and go round again for another try. They usually seem to stay in for 5 to 10 mins. There has been a regular party of ‘screamers’ too, racing around the houses and close to the boxes, probably prospecting for empty ones ready for next year I have been told.

Then at 8am I opened my front door to be appalled to see a Swift on my drive. I immediately picked it up, finding it quite alert and carried it upstairs to my bedroom window where I held it up, it opened its wings...... and it glided down to the ground again. Not knowing what else to do, I found a shoebox and took it with me so that our club veterarian expert, Debby Reynolds, could check it over. It didn’t appear to have damaged wings or feathers so we left the box in shade to give the bird a peaceful chance to recover. It was much brighter after a while and I tried the ‘off the hand’ flying again with the same result as earlier. I had soaked a few crumbled calciworms and tried a tiny dropper bottle with water but it wouldn’t open its bill. I was beginning to get concerned.

I had emailed Ailsa Claybourne, who speaks about Swifts, for advice, but her reply was late getting to me so I didn’t pick it up till early Sunday. ‘Swifty’ was still quite lively thank goodness. Ailsa recommended calling the Oxfordshire Wildlife Rescue Centre in Blewbury which I hadn’t known about but I had to wait until 9am to do that. The Swift Conservation website said to offer a dampened cotton bud wiped around its bill, which I tried but didn’t know if it took any water.

I did get hold of the rescue centre just after 9am and was asked if I could get the bird back in the nest. We had thought it was an adult by its plumage, but if it was a chick there was no way I could reach the boxes. Anyway, they said to take it to them if I could and I went straight away. One of the staff also tried the ‘fly off the hand’ technique with the same results as me. They did identify it as a juvenile by measuring its wings and finding they were only 13cms long and not 16 as an adult. They felt that it had jumped too soon, most likely because of the heatwave, and simply wasn’t ready to fly. I left it with them, plus a donation. I rang back that afternoon to be told it was doing OK, having ‘liquid therapy’ and some TLC for a couple of weeks. I was so relieved. We have since learnt that the centre has already released 23 swifts from their care over the Spring - all most likely overheated juveniles jumping early. That does make sense.