One swallow to make summer

ARISTOTLE’S timeless adage about single swallows never heralding the arrival of summer lost all credibility with an eye opening flash of a sunburnt backside.

- Stuart Winter

The season of blue skies and sultry temperatures was there to behold in all its glory after an up-close-and-personal view of one of the most beautiful visitors to Portugal’s coastal wetlands.

No bird exudes the essence of summer birding amid the tamarisk scrublands dotted along the Algarve quite like a red-rumped swallow sallying and soaring in the crystal-clear light of a new day.

“The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, a blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, a whip-lash swimmer, a fish of the air,” he observed.