Chimney Swift
There are Chimney Swifts, Chaetura pelagica, screaming above me here in Virginia:
They are such tricky birds to photograph: they fly high; they fly fast.
Sickle-winged silhouettes
Screaming in the sky
Mile-high migrators
Passengers to Peru
Chimney-clinging fly-catchers
Masters in mid-air
The Chimney Swift is a summer visitor here in Virginia, just like the Common Swift is a summer visitor to the UK. Scientists in the USA only discovered where Chimney Swifts spend the winter in 1944, when rings from birds which had been ringed (or banded as they say here) in North America were recovered in Peru. An indigenous Peruvian had been wearing the bands as a necklace.
That’s a lovely story until you wonder what had happened to all those Chimney Swifts. They were probably killed, just like many Common Swifts which breed in the UK are killed in places like Malta.
Wildlife does not recognise national borders. The world shares our wildlife and when it is killed in one country it impoverishes us all.
Long may they scream.
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