Common swift that resemble a crescent or a boomerang. Their call is a loud scream in two different tone pitches, the higher of which issues from the female. They often form 'screaming parties' during summer evenings, when 10–20 swifts will gather in flight around their nesting area, calling out and being answered by nesting swifts. Larger "screaming parties" are formed at higher altitudes, especially late in the breeding season. The purpose of these parties is uncertain, but may include ascending to sleep on the wing, while still breeding adults tend to spend the night in the nest. Swifts may nest in former
The Summer Birds Farmer took one story originally intended for "The China People", but which proved too long to include, writing, "It was too big an idea, too bony as a short story." This was rewritten as the first chapter of "The Summer Birds" (1962), her first book featuring Charlotte and Emma Makepeace. The main settings of the book are a small village school in the South Downs in southern England, and Aviary Hall, the girls' home. According to Farmer, Charlotte and Emma, who grow up in their Grandfather Elijah's house, were originally based on her mother and her mother's sister as children,