Repost from my favourite seaside today. I have a migraine and screens are not conducive, so please forgive my lack of visits to blogging friends: the moment it lifts I will be over to see you.
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 wandered the perfect sandy beach, where the dog disgraced us all by signing his name, in his own inimitable fashion, on a young child’s sandcastle.
I heard a shout. Maddie was pointing up to the sky.
There was a tiny bird wheeling and manoeuvering, up in the blue. It had a very different way of moving from those bombastic, belligerent seagulls. This was a pilot of some distinction.
“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 literally thousands swallows awaited his return.
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.
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 and watched some swallows sitting on a telegraph wire attached to the house.”Listen,” my sister-in-law 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.
Tiny – or Thumbelina, as we have come to know her- was both very small, and a very beautiful girl.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.
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.
Tiny 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 trapped in darkness again.
I resolved to take a photograph of one last swift 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 
‘Swallow, swallow, little swallow’ said the Happy Prince, ‘Will you not stay with me one night longer?’
Hope the migraine goes away fast.
Me too 🙂 Doesn’t the Little Prince sum up all that longing so beautifully? Thanks for that lovely reminder.
Sorry about the migraine. At least we got to read this delightful post. Feel better soon.
Very atmospheric. You paint a lovely picture of that day at the beach. It’s interesting to hear about the birds’ different accents, too. 🙂
I see a bird and my heart sings… would that I could fly on wings, join them in majestic flight…I wish this wish with all my might…
The World without Birds would be a very sad place, methinks Kate, I can’t believe there’s anyone alive on this Planet of ours who doesn’t get a lift from seeing their surging flight, and acrobatic skills, their songs and their chirps… A wonderful read , and I do hope the migraine attack wears off quickly…xPenx
I seldom choose poetry as preferred reading material; yet twice, in very short order, a blog post has sent me Googling. This morning, I found Thomas Aird (born at Bowden, Roxburghshire in 1802, died 1876) and this work of his:
The Swallow
The swallow, bonny birdie, comes sharp twittering o’er the sea,
And gladly is her carol heard for the sunny days to be;
She shares not with us wintry glooms, but yet, no faithless thing,
She hunts the summer o’er the earth with wearied little wing.
The lambs like snow all nibbling go upon the ferny hills;
Light winds are in the leafy woods, and birds, and bubbling rills;
Then welcome, little swallow, by our morning lattice heard,
Because thou com’st when Nature bids bright days be thy reward!
Thine be sweet mornings with the bee that’s out for honey-dew;
And glowing be the noontide for the grass-hopper and you;
And mellow shine, o’er day’s decline, the sun to light thee home:
What can molest thy airy nest? sleep till the day-spring come!
The river blue that rushes through the valley hears thee sing,
And murmurs much beneath the touch of thy light-dipping wing.
The thunder-cloud, over us bowed, in deeper gloom is seen,
When quick reliev’d it glances to thy bosom’s silvery sheen.
The silent Power, that brought thee back with leading-strings of love
To haunts where first the summer sun fell on thee from above,
Shall bind thee more to come aye to the music of our leaves,
For here thy young, where thou hast sprung, shall glad thee in our eaves.
A promise for next Spring. 🙂 Feel better soon, Kate.
I hope your migraine is gone soon, and unlike the swallow, it never comes back. 🙂
It is something of a past time of mine to sit on the porch and wonder where the birds I see are going, where they’ve been. This flock of swallows fascinated me, Kate. I could practically see them there on the cliff.
May your migraine fly away with speed.
Hope that migraine is soon a faded memory
Yup then they come down and chat here with their oh-so-English accents – just to impress the locals
I’ve read that the prehistoric peradactyls of one species made the non stop trans Atlantic migration to lay her eggs and many died of exhaustion soon after. I could die of exhaustion driving to and from downtown Miami. It is a combination of heat, traffic and the lunatic immigrant drivers that have no business being behind the wheel of a car.
Wonderful chance to reread this post, Kate. I hope you are feeling better soon. I know how horrible a migraine can be.
It’s been ages since I had a migraine. I don’t miss them.
Feel better soon, Kate!
I do love watching and listening to those air-weaving songsters…
“They did not sound like English birds:” – maybe they were practicing their Afrikaans in anticipation of their next destination? 😉
I noticed quite early in life that blackbirds have a Swedish accent. If you listen carefully they all sound like the Swedish Chef from The Muppets
Must listen out….
Miserable, miserable migraines. Hopefully the grip is soon released.
People have the most unromantic names for poor birds, and a fixation with their behinds. One gulp doesn’t make a fountain, so I’ll only acknowledge spring when I see flocks. As it is, we recently stuck a dirty great airport in an area they frequent.
Dear Kate,
Thank you for this delightful retelling of Thumbelina. I first read this story when my aunt and uncle gave me the book “Fairy Tales and Stories” by Hans Christian Anderson for Christmas when I was in the fourth grade. That would have been 1945.
I have the book in front of me now because your posting prompted me to reread the story. On the book’s cover is a woodcut of the Wild Swans. The book gives the title “Tommelisa” to the story you told today. I loved it as a child.
Tommelisa’s story is accompanied by a woodcut of her sitting within a flower from “the warm countries.” She has met the king of all the Flower Angels who live in these flowers. He is bemused by her, makes her his queen, and gives her a new name–“Maia.”
Thank you for recalling all this to me. My book is worn with use for I loved it as a child and absorbed all the stories within its orange cover.
May your migraine vanish swiftly and never return! Vile things! Unlike the precious swallows, who fill me with joy on their return every spring. They are my constant companions in the herb garden all summer, being very curious and sociable.
I recall, a fews past, when I found a grounded Swift. It was dazed and exhausted, and offered no resistance when I picked it up. In fact just the opposite. It clung teneciously to the front of my jumper as though I was it’s long-lost dad for a good half hour. Whenever I tried to get it airborne again it came right back to me -staring into my face with those black, wide-set – almost evil-looking – eyes. Knowing little about birds I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do with my aerial limpet when I chanced upon a tiny brook. Inspired I cupped some water and trickled it over the face of my little buddy. Within moments it grew decidedly more animated. It even allowed me to disengage its claws from my jumper. Then turning the bird around I tossed it into the air. It (I never dicovered its gender) dipped initially, then swept upwards, did a circuit around me to get his bearings, then was away across the fields towards the woodland near which I’d found it. I was both pleased and concerned at the same time: Pleased that the Swift was well and free: Concerned because in my experience no good turn go unpunished. But this time it seemed that i got away with an act of kindness – and gained a delightful memory..
Wonderful story, Tooty. Swifts are always airborne,aren’t they-have I got that right?-they only set down to nest. The air is their home: your little chap must have felt like a fish out of water. Must remember the water: just in case it ever happens to me….wishful thinking…