24. Welcome to Dubrovnik - Turistička zajednica grada Dubrovnika

The Dubrovnik Summer’s Heavenly Chorus
Swifts
The sky above Dubrovnik’s
Old City is reminiscent of
the world’s busiest airports.
Hundreds of swifts fly over the roofs
from all directions with their familiar
twitter. They dart about, rotate, twist,
glide and sometimes excitedly chase
each other shrieking loudly. They seem
to be led by an invisible flight controller,
because they manage to miss each
other in all this throng and reach their
destinations without any problems.
The crescendo of their noisy twitter is
at times louder than the voices in the
Stradun. They are extremely shrill as
if wishing to be heard, so you have to
look up, even if you don’t want to. The
people of Dubrovnik are used to that,
but the tourists are often surprised and
impressed by their loud screams and
huge numbers. When telling visitors
about the City’s cultural and historic
sites, tourist guides often answer
questions about the swifts too.
Scientists are also intrigued by swifts. In
1980 the prestigious Dubrovnik natural
scientist and ornithologist, Ivo Tutman,
defended his doctoral dissertation on
The Structure and Dynamics of the Mixed
Bird Populations in the Dubrovnik Area.
According to his dissertation, three
species of swifts inhabit the City’s wider
area: the Alpine Swift (Tachymarptes
melba), the Common Swift (Apus apus)
and the Palid Swift (Apus pallidus). The
latter nests on vertical and inaccessible
seaside cliffs, but can occasionally be
seen in Dubrovnik’s Old City.
The Alpine Swift is the most commonly
found summer bird in Dubrovnik, and
its numbers on the coast are never as
great as within the Old City. It is more
resistant to weather conditions than its
relative the Common Swift, so it comes
to our region earlier and leaves later. It
arrives in April, nests in early May, lays
eggs in late May and the eggs hatch in
early June. It nests in the cracks of cliffs,
holes in the city walls, on the facades
of houses and under roofs. Baby birds
remain in the nests till they become
capable of flying, which happens late in
July and early in August. At that time
huge flocks of both adult and young
birds leave their nests every morning
and fly very far in search of food.
Returning together before sunset, swifts
create the City’s background music
with their loud twitter. The swifts from
the Old City sometimes migrate to the
south only in late October.
Also numerous in Dubrovnik’s Old
City, the Common Swift forms separate
flocks and doesn’t mix with the Alpine
Swift. After searching for food, the
birds quickly return to their nests. The
Common Swift is an excellent flyer, and
its body is exceptionally well adapted
to living in the air. Staying in the air
longer than any other bird, it flies faster,
and more vigorously and dynamically
than swallows, usually in huge and
noisy flocks. Some swifts even spend
the night flying and sleeping in the air.
Curiously enough, some couples remain
together for many years. The Common
Swift is useful for killing mosquitoes and
flies. To its young in the nest it doesn’t
bring one insect at a time, but gathers
them in its throat and presses them
into small balls. Each ball contains 300
insects on average. The bird is also a sort
of meteorologist – when flying low it
announces a change of weather and rain,
because when it is cold or damp flies and
mosquitoes fly lower.
However, although their huge noisy
flocks at times resemble scenes from
Hitchcock’s The Birds, swifts are the
City’s favourite seasonal residents. It
can also happen that their screams are
louder than the concerts at the Rector’s
Palace. However, that too is a part of the
City’s summer atmosphere, appreciated
by many famous musicians whose
playing has often been accompanied by
the birds’ piercing screams.
Swifts are mentioned in works by
the famous Dubrovnik writers Ivo
Vojnović and Mato Vodopić, while the
amazing charm of the birds was also
witnessed by the great Croatian poet
Dragutin Tadijanović. He first arrived
in Dubrovnik in 1923, as an eighteenyear
old student, and eighty years later
he remembered his first encounter with
the City by the twitter of swifts. “I will
never forget the swifts’ chirping above
the Stradun, which I used to listen to in
the early evening by Orlando’s Column
and by the Clock-Tower. For many years
I carried with me their twitter as the
background music to my first encounter
40 Dobrodošli u Dubrovnik Zima 2012./13.