Devil-may-care flight of the swift

Swifts arrive from Africa in May and leave in August, writes Richard Collins. 

There are 92 kinds of them worldwide but only one species breeds here. Cool damp Ireland is not an ideal place to raise young swifts.

You might think global warming would help but, according to the Bird Atlas, the species’ range here has shrunk by 26% since 1970 and the number of birds fell by around 46% between 1998 and 2010. In Britain, the breeding range didn’t shrink significantly but numbers dropped by about 38% between 1995 and 2010.