The swifts...

...are back.  MrsK spotted two swifts flying around in front of the house today.  I haven't checked my records, but it seems earlier than usual.  I remembered that I had allowed the ivy to grow up the end of the little barn, where the swifts nest on top of the wall under the roof slates.  So I got the ladder and spent a couple of hours cutting it back. Meanwhile the swifts stuck around, seemingly watching me clear it away for them. We had five nests last year in this and the adjacent cart shed, which is the most we have had in nineteen years, the least being two.  They are always last to arrive each summer, and first to leave.  But this year for the very first time they have beaten the house martins - assuming they are coming.  When I was up there I found a last-year's nest in the owl hole that we hadn't known was there, probably a blackbird.  It's not like MrsK to miss that.