"Mike Hibbert" wrote in message
. uk...
Mary Fisher wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

When do birds fly south for the winter?

I am renovating my rotten fascia boards and there is a birds nest in
one corner.
What is the best time to evict the birds?


They'll leave as soon as the chicks can fly, I'd be surprised if there
were any still in there unless they're swifts. If they are swifts PLEASE
let them be, they're getting fewer and fewer.

cor, not round out way they aren't! It's lovely to watch them on a summer
evening, bloody loads of them flying around!

Tonight I counted twelve - I reckon some of the fledglings are out. We
haven't seen more than five at a time until today. The numbers are reducing
year on year which is why I want people to protect them.

The most wonderful thing about swifts is the noise - the sound of summer.
The second is the speed they fly at - cutting through the air ...

You know that they can't stand or walk - legs and feet too feeble, they
don't need them. But one year a young swift must have fallen out of the nest
and into our cavity wall. We rescued it, a teenage son held it in his hands.
There can't be many people who've held a swift. He didn't know what to do,
nor did I. I said, "Throw it into the air and see what happens, it has no
chance unless it can fly." He threw it into the air - and it went up and
up - magic! Now, every time he sees them flying, he remembers that he held
one in his hand. An enduring memory - it must be twenty years ago.

The other magical bird is the skylark. Once I watched one, unbelievingly,
while Spouse was flying a model on setaside land. I told him to watch this
thing going up and up, singing. "Keep watching, keep watching, " I
instructed, even when the bird was invisible, it was so high. Then suddenly
it dropped like a stone, straight down, accelerating at 32' per sec per sec,
until it pulled out of the fall at ground level. Spouse couldn't believe it
either, he wished he could pull an aircraft out of such a fall ...

Mary