watching, short, swifts

 Something moved.

"Short back and sides," says a neighbour passing as I supervise some fine touches being applied to the hedge by the hedge cutter. He said the same things last year and I dare say the year before.  And I hope he will say it again next year.

Sitting in the garden I hear the swifts shrieking before I see them in the space between the top of the hedge and the rooftops. They swoop and slice the air with their swept back wings. They are my favourite birds. I love them for their wildness and their  speed and precision, the sharpness of their turns,  their agility and deftness in avoiding collision. Summer is here.