It has been a while since I last stood on Roseberry, looking down on clouds. And even longer since I came up here on a Saturday. Most seemed to have taken the yellow thunderstorm warning as a cue to stay indoors. Easby Moor, with its pointed monument to Captain Cook, rose clean above the mist.
I spent a while trying to photograph a group of swifts screaming round the summit, catching insects. They moved with astonishing speed — twisting, diving, veering with ultimate precision. Their swept-back wings give them that unmistakable boomerang shape. The ancients thought they had no feet. Understandable, since they spend nearly all their lives in the air — drinking, feeding, mating, even sleeping on the wing. Some go ten months without landing. No other bird stays aloft so long. The scientific name Apus means “without foot” in Greek. They do have feet, though — short legs with claws for clinging to walls and cliffs. And despite the myth, they can take off from flat ground.
Not that it helped me. They were far too quick, too sharp. I never stood a chance.
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