AN AUTHOR who has documented the life of a swift, using Oswestry as its base, is to give a talk on the birds at Ellesmere Town Hall in February.

Sarah Gibson, who works for Shropshire Wildlife Trust, will be giving her talk – Swifts and Us: The bird that sleeps in the sky – at the Willow Street building on Thursday, February 3.

The talk is being organised by the Trust as part of a number of events around the county in 2022.

Sarah's book 'Swifts and Us' charts how the birds live their lives almost entirely in the air, where they eat, drink, sleep, mate and gather their nesting materials on the wing, fly thousands of miles across the world, navigating their way around storms and depressions, and more.

On the release of her book in May 2021, she said: "Each summer they bring us three months’ joy, scything over the rooftops in screaming groups, stirring wonder and excitement in those that notice them.

"I was slow in my awareness of them, decades passed in ignorance, in what looks to me now a breathtaking lack of curiosity.

"Then I moved into a town and was instantly alert to their wild calls and smitten by a desire to have them in my life, skimming between chimneys, snatching spiders from the air and perhaps even nesting in my roof."

The talk, which runs from 8-9.30pm, is open to everyone – entry for Shropshire Wildlife Trust members is £3 and £4 for non-members.