Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
This week, I met a Swift for the first time. I had seen Swifts before, soaring across the skies in the UK from early May, but I had never seen one up close. This is because Swifts very rarely land—they literally eat, drink, bathe, mate, and sleep on the wing; staying airborne for 10 months at a time1. If that fact is new to you, I highly encourage pausing for a second to take it in.
Swifts leave the UK in July & August to fly 6000 miles or so to Sub-Saharan Africa, where they spend the winter. They are incredibly fast flyers, with top speeds of 70 miles (112km) per hour.