Lesley and I had a walk around the village last night just to see if our legs still worked after sitting watching all that football! Walking back down Lower Faircox, we bumped into Tony Fitzgerald who was checking out Swift nest boxes for any signs of activity when eagle-eyed Lesley noticed way in the distance some birds flying across the face of the half-moon. We latched on to them with our bins and there were quite a number of them and saw that they were Swifts. They kept on coming in waves heading in an easterly direction and we watched them  for about 10 minutes and estimated that there were at least 300 passing through, but were probably more. It’s possible that they were heading towards Beachy Head where, along with Swallows and House Martins, they congregate before waiting to cross the channel. As we tried to get our necks back into the right position, it was lovely to bask in the sight we had just witnessed.

When we got back to home, we sat on the balcony for a while and it was lovely to see that our Swifts that had been with us for the last week or so were still racing around us, so hoping they will stay around for a wee bit longer.

Photo credit Alison Playle