We are living through the Sixth Mass Extinction on our planetary home, and while those of us alive today won’t live to see the end of it, our so-called civilisation really needs to take a hard look at itself. This morning, ironically given that I’m in conversation with Mark Cocker re his 2023 book One Midsummer’s Day, on June 7th (see below), which while not “about” swifts, as Mark himself is keen to emphasise, uses the swift as chart and compass to take us through the wondrous story of life’s evolution and our own interconnectedness with all of nature.

Unfortunately as we live through the end of capitalism (infinite growth is simply not possible on a finite planet! – I wish the so-called pragmatism and realism that passes for decontextualised economics would actually get real) and the demise of the delusions of the Age of Enlightenment, that message has still to reach those in power. Or maybe they are just so full of cynicism and resentment that they just can’t take it in. Maybe it’s too hard. Maybe they are too greedy. But when I read in today’s Guardian about the wanton destruction of a swift colony during the breeding season, when the birds had already travelled 8000 miles to come “home”, and committed to building their nests and laying their eggs – of course it’s illegal to do so, but I’m sure any fine is derisory – I found myself, yet again, crying. It is just so ridiculous that as ecosystems collapse on a planetary scale and global temperatures soar, that this kind of cruelty and destructiveness can take place.

It reminded me of some years back, when local swift expert Peter Cush of NI Swift Group told me of his story about trying to get the Lyric Theatre to incorporate swift bricks into the new building. I live quite close to the Lyric and its cliff of a building would be the perfect facade for swifts to nest in. Alas whoever was then in charge dismissed the idea. The swifts would be “dirty”.

Swift bricks are now a legal obligation in new builds in Scotland. Would that they were here.

Anyway, I’m taking to opportunity to plug this Sunday’s conversation with Mark when we will in the Crescent Arts Centre, which, unlike the Lyric, has a far more enlightened attitude to its native swifts. We will converse as these emissaries of the early Palaeocene dart across the sky above us. Please join us. We need to make our conversation as large as possible on this upcoming midsummer day.