NO bird symbolises high summer more than the swift: the flocks that race like hooligans through our towns and villages on July evenings, screaming ecstatically, capture the very essence of the season. Once known as devil birds, swifts have always been creatures of mystery, appearing suddenly in early May and departing equally abruptly in August. Nobody knew where they came from nor where they went to. The naturalist Gilbert White thought that they hibernated, but Edward Jenner (1749-1823), the man who invented vaccination, was the first to suggest that they migrated.
This story is from the June 2021 edition of The Field.
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This story is from the June 2021 edition of The Field.
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