We have been blessed with a dazzling day today.
For all my loud protestations that I would sleep in, I woke before dawn broke, made a cup of tea, and watched dawn break over the English Channel.
Delicious, this moment was: no-one stirred for an hour as the various midnight hues, punctuated with lighthouses and ferries and bobbing buoys, faded gradually and finally to daylight.
Breakfasts and jacuzzis later, we were dressed and ready to strike out for the beach.
We donned warm coats and sunglasses and put the dog on what passes for a lead, because we forgot to bring Macaulay’s tether down with us.
We wandered the perfect sandy beach and the dog disgraced us all by signing his name, in his own inimitable fashion, on a young child’s sandcastle.
Felix built a castle and was delighted when it was vanquished by the waves: and Maddie, for the first time, declined to dance with the tiny paddling shallows because she wanted to look grown up.
But while her feet kept from dancing, her eyes were instead: taking in every tiny little detail. She suddenly exclaimed, triumphant and merry: “Look, Mum!”
She was pointing up to the sky.
There was a tiny bird wheeling and manoevering, up in the blue. It had a very different way of moving from those bombastic, belligerent seagulls. This was a pilot of some distiction.
“It’s a swallow! He’s looking for bugs over the water!” she shouted over the din of the waves.
I squinted. She was right. That little spitfire had found the all-important bug-layer, filled with small winged sources of protein, and was feasting like an airborne emperor.
But I was puzzled. This little bird was alone, and these pilots always travel in convoy.
And what’s more, he wasn’t supposed to be here. Out last swallows leave our shores, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds, at the end of September. And we are nearing Hallowe’en.
We watched, craning our necks, while the tiny hunter had its fill. And then we tracked him back towards the cliff: where hundreds of swallows awaited his return.
That answered the convoy question.
The whole cliff was alive with aerial acrobats, ducking and weaving and swooping and diving. And, it turns out, waiting.
For they were about to start a 6,000 mile journey, lasting about four weeks, at a rate of 200 miles a day.
No wonder the assembly had the feeling of a Party Congress: these little creatures have a marathon ahead of them, and they seem to be following my raison d’etre and leaving it all to the last minute.
We ambled off to the harbour, where the boats sat waiting for the tide to rise so that they, too, could be away from these shores. Land-locked, they were, but soon the sea would beckon from the corner of the harbour and the fishermen would be about their business.
They’re all going: and we will be left behind. It puts me in mind of a swallow more than a hundred years ago, who went to nest with a writer of fairy tales.
The story goes that the little bird chose a very particular window above which to make its nest. It was a window belonging to Hans Christian Andersen.
Its song inspired the teller of tales. And if you have ever listened to a swallow, you will know why.
Once I sat in a Cornish garden on the edge of Bodmin Moor with my sister-in-law, Nancy. She is gifted with animals, but particularly with birds, and she had already taken us on a magical walk to watch the swallows hunting in the warm updrafts of a farmer’s cow field.
Now we sat and watched some swallows sitting on a telegraph wire attached to the house.”Listen,” Nancy told us. “You can hear their African accents.”
Sure enough, when we tuned into their voices, the most exotic dialect became evident. They were talking to each other of the lands they had left, and basking in the heady optimism which Spring brings, every year, to England. They did not sound like English birds: and yet what English Summer is complete without the swallow?
Andersen heard the clicking, sidling tones of the little bird and weaved a story around its song.
Its heroine was just an inch high, born of an old woman’s wish for a child. But this one was a victim.
Tiny – or Thumbelina, as we have come to know her- was both very small, and a very beautiful girl. She lost out on all counts. Toads and birds kidnapped her from her place of safety and tried to marry her off: and even when she found a friend in a mouse, he started to try to set her up with an arranged marriage to his friend the mole.
A Danish tale, its writer shared with our island a dread of the darkness of winter. Tiny’s fate seems to be sealed: she must marry mole and live forever trapped in darkness, never to see the light.
Mole and mouse shared a tunnel, with a skylight at one point. And beneath the skylight was a dead swallow.
This was Tiny’s chance to cast off the victim mould. She hung back as the others left, and ascertained that the swallow had a heartbeat. And she covered him with wool to keep him warm: and throughout the long dark winter, long after the swallow’s friends and family had left for warm shores, Tiny nursed the swallow back to health.
When his family returned in the springtime, Tiny let him out through the skylight. And roundabout this time of year, he returned to carry her, on his back, to sun and serenity. Tiny was never a victim again.
I resolved to take a photograph of a swift one last one before they left; and by watching carefully I could see there was a tree filled with them.
I would pop back after we walked around the harbour, I decided.
But I returned just 30 minutes later to find that they had gone. Those enchanting air-weavers have set out on their quest, which not all will survive. In a month they will be arriving with my South African friends for a wonderful Summer.
And we will have our winter. A lot of water will pass under the bridge: but come next Spring, maybe that cliffside will be busy once more.
Kate Shrewsday 
Like me, they are heading for a warmer climate !!!!!…..
Yes, lovely little things with their African accents…hope the warm sun of Cyprus is treating you well:-)
Good to hear that you had a nice day by the coast today.
Swallows in stories – the first one that comes to my mind is this: http://fiction.eserver.org/short/happy_prince.html
I think that I had a tape of short stories as a child that I listened to at bedtime – this one made me cry (still does)!
Not sure if I am going to be able to join N&J with you on Thursday – think I might be getting summoned to a meeting with the big boss. No prizes for guessing where I’d rather be!
Thanks Miff, this one’s a total classic-so profound- but as you say, tear-jerking:-) Thanks! We’ll miss you Thursday..but another day, another dollar. We’ll take lots of photos on Thursday and if anyone does anything funny you can read about it here!!
We have swallows here come summer, but not these beauties you have. I have several Emma Bridgewater mugs and keep eyeing the swallow which is so like the swift you picture here. hmmm Hans Christian Andersen told the most remarkable of tales, didn’t he?
He did. There is a compassion in his writing i love. And I do like a man who lets birdsong inspire a classic: there’s whole new post waiting to be written…
Some have arrived already, 4.42 am and they are teasing my neighbour’s rooster.
Enjoy the rest of your week, Kate.
Ha! Never heard of rooster-teasing, Cindy, next year I will watch them closely when I am in Cornwall and near roosters. the warm Spring must be going to their heads. So no sleep tonight, then…
I missed a day 😦
The days are warming up, and bird return will happen here soon. Much as I love their morning song the magpies will be nesting, and that means running with ones head covered when they dive – some give serious pecks given half a chance.
Glad you’re having such a lovely break.
You are entitled to miss days. Regular’s perks:-) Your magpies sound positively Hitchcockian, Liz! Time for a tin hat:-)
absolutely beautiful kate. i read this on my reader days ago and remembered how it made me feel. introspective, a little sad, but uplifted by your confidence that they would return.
Glad you liked it, UE:-) I do find the time they are away hard, but their return is so riotous it is totally uplifting. Suits those of us who are a little extreme.