A flock of needletail swifts flew high in the sky, weaving in and out of the clouds. It was a rare sight, these mercurial birds only occasionally coming into view across Tasmania.
The arrival of the white-throated needletails in the summer months usually sends birdwatchers into a flutter. I had only seen them on one previous occasion when I suddenly saw them flying over Sandy Bay.
The only problem was I was attending a parent-teacher meeting at my son’s school. The teacher must have wondered why I was constantly looking beyond the desk she was sitting at, at the swifts I could see swirling above the school playing field.
With my son’s education on the line, I could hardly obey the urge to dash into the schoolyard. The swift sighting would have to wait.
That was about a decade ago and I’m still awaiting another sighting, although I constantly look for the needletails and a fellow, even rarer traveller, the fork-tailed swift, in the skies over Hobart.
My thoughts always turn to the swifts at this time of year when I receive the annual report on sightings, compiled by an expert on the species, Mike Tarburton. This revealed that during 2020/21 season there were 3885 reports of sightings across the whole of Australia, considerably more on the previous year, when the figure stood at 3194.
The swifts usually can be seen across Australia between October and March, although the latest report records an unusually early September sighting in Tasmania.
The more than 100 species of swifts worldwide carry mystery on their sickle-shaped wings. Next to the peregrine falcon, they are the fastest of birds, reaching speeds of 130 km/h but beyond their agility in flight there is still much to be learned about their natural history.
Probably the best studied is the European swift, which is known to be airborne from the time it leaves the nest to its first breeding season two years later.
It was once believed that the needletails visiting Australia did not come to earth all. But they have now been observed roosting in trees and radio-tracking has since confirmed that this is a regular activity.
The species – like the fork-tailed swift – breeds in northern and north-eastern Asia and little else is known of their breeding behaviour except that courtship displays consist of a series of vertical flights and that copulation might take place in flight.
The white-throated needletail feeds on flying insects, such as termites, ants, beetles and flies, which they catch in flight with wide gaping beaks. At high speed, the birds have a special membrane to protect their eyes. They usually feed in rising thermal currents associated with storm fronts and bushfires.
This summer I’ll be out looking for the needletails again, in the knowledge that all these years on, a parent-teacher meeting will not become between me and the swifts.