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Swifts

As we often do on the Spring Bank Holiday we visited Bampton in Oxfordshire. The lack of swifts over the village was noticeable during the day. On one occasion a grand total of three flew overhead. Then just before five the sky seemed to explode with them although numbers still seemed low when I tried to count, not an easy process as they insist on moving all the time.
In previous years I have regarded this as very much on the edge of the range of the Chiltern red kites but this time there were several individuals over the village for most of the time. I was also lucky today to see one perched on a lamp post on Gore Hill in Amersham. You seldom have an opportunity to see the bird in a context that gives you a true guide to its size.
On the same journey a kestrel was, sadly, an unusual sight for me hovering over the roundabout by the Beaconsfield motorway services.
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