A ‘River of Swifts’ Frieze Comes To Life

Chiswick Swift Project display will be at Chiswick Library for all to see

Picture: Anna Kunst

The return of a blue sky, sunshine and warmth at the beginning of September were perfect for Tidefest on Sunday – an annual celebration, now in its 5th year, of the River Thames.

Among the stands, entertainments and activities on offer (both on shore and on the water) at Strand on the Green and Kew Bridge Piazza, was the Chiswick Swift Project and RSPB local group's, which invited everyone to stop at their marquee and make a paper swift for their Tidefest ‘River of Swifts’ frieze.

The collage gradually came to life during the day as adults and children created their own unique and imaginatively-decorated paper swifts. Catherine Day, local RSPB Swift Volunteer who runs the Chiswick Swift Project, said that the trickiest part of preparing the painted river for the collage was sticking together the five large sheets making up the four-and-a-quarter-metre-long river painting in her three-metre-long kitchen!

“It’s fantastic that we had such a cloudless, warm day this year", she said at the end of the afternoon. “The fabulous weather and all the colourful paper swifts that gradually filled our frieze as the day went on made it seem as if summer was back. After all, the sight and sound of swifts in the sky really are so evocative and the very essence of summer. Our activity table was busy non-stop and the result is a wonderfully colourful and exuberant artwork”.

You can see the finished Chiswick Swift Project’s Tidefest 'River of Swifts’ for the next fortnight or so from 1 October at Chiswick LIbrary (at the top of Dukes Avenue near the High Rd).

Catherine said, “We’d like to thank Anne Cartwright, Senior Library Assistant, and all the staff at the library for offering to display it so that lots more people can come and admire this joyful creation. ”

The library will also have leaflets about swifts, swift nest boxes and the Chiswick Swift Project that you can pick up for free.

Swifts visit us for only three months each year, coming here to nest before heading back to spend nine months continually in the air over Africa. They usually return to their lifetime nest sites here in the first week of May. This year, most of our swifts were very late arriving owing to drought and very late rains in countries south of the Sahara and then appalling weather in Iberia this spring, all creating a lack of the flying insects they feed on and making for terrible migratory conditions.

Once those that made it home to their nest sites here had arrived, they enjoyed great ‘swift weather’ during our hot and sunny summer. However, the cold, rainy weekend on 25th-26th August (remember the dreadfully wet day for the Ride London cycling event?) meant that pretty much all our swifts left us suddenly at the same time, leaving our skies empty of them rather early this year. "A bit of a shock to the system as they usually set off on migration more gradually than that during the end of July and beginning of August”, Catherine says.

“It was great to have so many people contributing to our ‘River of Swifts’ artwork at Tidefest, as each person found a totally individual way of decorating their swift. Among the imaginative colour schemes and designs, there is even a rocket-propelled swift by one of the children who took part, which is great fun. Obviously, the fact that these astonishing small birds are the fastest in the world in level flight (in other words, under their own power rather than in a dive, or ‘stoop’, like peregrine) and have been recorded at 69.5 mph, made a big impression on the young artist!”.

If any schools, businesses or shops in Chiswick would like to borrow the 'River of Swifts’ to put on display for a few while, at any time after the library, to brighten up the winter months, please email Catherine (see below).

“This would be brilliant,” she says, "as it deserves to be seen and admired by lots more Chiswickians. If you can host our frieze to display for a short while, it will not only attract interest and raise a smile, but also vitally help raise awareness of how serious the decline in our swift population is and how we can easily make make a real difference as individuals, businesses and a community to save our remaining summer swifts.”

To borrow the 'River of Swifts’, email Catherine, RSPB Volunteer Swift & Urban Nature Adviser at the Chiswick Swift Project, at catherine.day.lacia@btinternet.com

Catherine is also available to speak to schools and at other events.

September 29, 2018