Daylight saving time begins in North America today (well, with some exceptions, like Saskatchewan). As a minor irritant, most of Europe also will switch to summer time, but not for another three weeks. According to Tim Q, the EU intends to give up making the relatively pointless time change. Can imagine that a post Brexit UK and America will regard it as a point of principle to refuse to copy the EU, while Canada will do whatever the US does. And so it goes.
Back to ours for coffee after Cambanella’s. We have quite a decent view, considering that it’s urban, and Bill notes that the swifts are back. They’re from the family apodidae, literally footless, although that isn’t literally true, and are therefore related to the hummingbird. Swifts are characterised by very long wingspan compared to body length, and in fact are not only able to fly very fast, as their name suggests, but can remain in the air almost endlessly. Despite this healthy swifts rarely land and fly for very long periods of time, eating, drinking, sleeping and even mating as they do so. “It is only breeding swifts that must land to build their nests and lay eggs. Most swifts have their first breeding season when they are 3 or 4 years old so a young swift may have stayed in the air permanently for 2-3 years” [britishbirdlovers.co.uk]. Quite astonishing. We usually see them from our fourth floor perch as they speed past in the late afternoon or early evening, eating insects as they go.
Photo credit: Paweł Kuźniar (Jojo_1) GFDL
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