'THE DEVIL BIRD'

Posted: 08.08.24 in Articles category

‘THE DEVIL BIRD’

I find it hard to understand. Why would anyone call a swift ‘the devil bird’? Yet that was one of the old names swifts were given in the past, as well as ‘devil’s bitch’, ‘deviling’ and ‘skeer devil. Perhaps these names took their cues from the bird’s black scimitar appearance and screech calls, or the ancient idea that swifts were once thought to be the crying souls of the dead, waiting in the underworld to move on. 

Whatever their past associations, swifts today are one of our most popular birds in Britain. In ‘Birds Britannica’ Mark Cocker quotes various people describing how swifts arouse strong positive emotions and have a powerful hold on their imagination. I particularly like his phrase that a “screaming party of swifts is perhaps the most perfect incarnation of summer’s energy and passion”. Or these words penned as a verse in the song ‘Dark Swift and Bright Swallow’ by contemporary folk musician Martin Simpson:      

 “Swifts scythe and scream through the city dusk

Late to come and first to leave

But come they do and leave they must

Hot August nights their absence grieve

How we miss their impudent glee

This devil’s bitch, this mystery

This spite that sleeps upon the breeze

Flies and feed behind the storm”

Likewise, I miss their passing in August. By the middle of the month there is usually an evening when I realise that I don’t hear their screaming calls nor see them as a flock above our house hurtling through the skies. With that realisation I have a sad sense that summer will soon be ending and the nights close in.

Much more worrying is their decline in numbers. Since 1995 the Common Swift in Britain has declined in population by over 50% and is Red Listed as a species here. We don’t fully know the reasons for their demise, but lack of available nest sites seems to be a key cause as modern houses typically leave few gaps in eaves and soffits, unlike houses built before the 1960s. Yet there is hope that this sorry trend can be reversed by encouraging people to install purpose-made swift boxes. There has been a nationwide spread of swift conservation groups and enthusiastic individuals getting people together to put up swift boxes. My sister and brother-in-law in Yorkshire are two such enthusiasts and 2023 proved to be their most successful year to date with five pairs of swifts using the boxes they installed high up on their terraced house. Unfortunately, we have had no such success in my Northumbrian village where none of the boxes put up in 2021 have yet been used by swifts – just the occasional sparrow!