A mouthful

Richard's away in Northern Ireland for a few days, visiting family there. I've been working in the garden, trying to catch up with the weeds, the grass, the dandelions, the buttercups etc - and planting out a few seedlings that got left behind in all the wet weather in May.

And while out there, it's impossible to resist trying to capture another image of the swifts that swoop and scream overhead.  I need to stake out a nesting site, I think, to have a chance of getting a decent image. That's a plan for another day.  Otherwise the combination of their speed and their flying height makes capturing clear detail very difficult, even with a long lens.

But this chance capture is interesting. It's the first time I've seen a swift with such a large mouthful of 'stuff' (so large, in fact, that I think he or she dropped it a few wing beats later).  I think it must be nest material (a good sign, of course). So each new photographic attempt brings new scraps of observation, for me - it's a pleasure every summer.