The swifts are back.

In the last few days, the swifts have returned. Surely the bellwether of summer, I hear their high-pitched trills and spot them soaring and swooping, twisting and turning joyfully as I settle down at my desk. Always moving, never resting. A life spent on the wing.

Sometimes they swoop low over my head as I walk along the path outside my house in the early evening, catching me by surprise. But mostly they stay up high above the rooftops, darting through the skies at extraordinary speed and with unimaginable agility as they catch insects mid-flight. Only their calls alerting us to their presence, reminding us to look up.