Awaiting the Swifts

Two days ago I wrote about a saint, Joseph, who is associated with a pastry.

Today another saint, this time associated with a bird. Or many thousands and thousands of birds, the remarkable swift which traditionally return to Rome around the day of San Benedetto, March 21.  (“San Benedetto, rondini sotto il tetto”, or “Saint Benedict, swifts under the eaves”.)  You will see them in every region of Italy this summer, from Sicily to Alto Adige, until July (a little later in high altitude areas.) For background information on the swift, I urge you to read Doctor Doolittle’s Post Office.

The sound of the swifts, for those of us who love them, is hauntingly beautiful. Is it a warble ? Is it a song ? It is loud, it is profoundly alive, it is high pitched and is usually heard in the chorus of many swifts swooping acrobatically, with magnificent grace, across the silvery morning and evening skies. Every one of a swift’s meals is caught in flight so they are crying out as they are eating, or eating as they are crying. Some swifts (one assumes young males) intentionally seem to cut off other swifts in flight, parroting aggressive Roman drivers. Swifts come back to their birthplaces to mate, and male swifts are showing off to females their aeronautical talents.

The most aerial of birds, and the fastest fliers of all fliers, the swifts fly as many as 200,000 kilometers from their winter home in sub-Saharan Africa to their birthplaces to breed and nest.

What must it be to fly over the Pantheon for three months ?  Or over Piazza Navona ?  Or over the acqueducts ?  Swifts fly only in the cool hours of the day, or when it is about to rain. They do not land during flight.

I often pour myself a glass of cool wine and go onto the terrace just to watch the evening show, which is endlessly beautiful and diverting, a ballet in the skiies, enlivened further by the remarkable song/cry/call of the birds. I love the moment, so quick that you will miss it if you blink, when the swifts retreat for the evening and the bats come out.  When this happens, it is time for dinner.

In Rome no swifts are left after mid July, this likely triggered by the lack of nutritious insects high in the air. At which point, in our family, begins again the count-down for next spring’s return of the swifts… on (or close to) March 21, the day of San Benedetto.