Summer's NOT Over

EDIT: Well, screwed up again. What can you do? Here's the original post for your amusement...


"Summer's Over"


Why?

Not the weather, as it's still far too 'orrible to call Autumn yet, no. I mean the True Indicators of Summer's Departure;

Swifts have gone.





Probably.


And on exactly the same date as last year, too. It's been a bit of a funny year for Swifts, with the conditions meaning they've never all been up where I can count them properly. It may be that numbers are down, but they seem to have done so well in the heatwave [it really was pretty much perfect timing for them to fledge and feed up their young] that I can't be sure.

Anyway, the highest count I got was 63 - which is very very low for 'juveniles and all', but it was a definite undercount, with a lot of birds in dead sky. This is [one of] the trouble[s] with all these deep little valleys; you just can't get 'em all unless they're high. And this year they weren't. Drat.







Having posted this, they will of course immediately show up and all fly past in line ahead, before forming skywriting; "Ha Ha" But that's birding....

;)




EDIT:
Yep, knew as I typed it... This evening, a yearly high count of 108 Swift [and 6+ House Martin] feeding merrily, nice and high, and not going anywhere [yet].