Migrating swifts swirl in the skies of Jerusalem

0:00From the light bulb to the internet, human history has been driven by innovation and shortwave is exploring how the technology of tomorrow will transform our future. Would you ride in a flying taxi? Will AI models fight wars? Hear about the technological frontier every Monday on TechCamp, the new series from Shorewave. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On today's State of the World, we go to Jerusalem and look up at the dipping, diving swifts of the Western Wall. You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories. Up close with their happening, I'm Christine Arismeth.

0:46Every springtime, the common swift takes flight on a vast migration from Africa to countries spanning the Middle East, Europe, China, and even Siberia. For thousands of years, one colony of swifts has nested in a very special place. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is one of the holiest sites in Judaism. The presence of these arrow-like birds is even written about in the Bible. NPR's Ruth Sherlock takes us to the scene. People are praying at the Western Wall, and above them, flying in circles, are dozens of swifts. They're catching insects and feeding their young that are nesting in the cracks of this ancient religious site.

1:37Scientists think they've been nesting here probably since this wall was first built some 2 ,000 years ago. From the skies of Tanzania, middle of Africa. Amnon Han, the head of the Friends of the Swifts Association of Israel, says the Swifts fly nearly 3 ,000 miles to reach this spot. It's a direct flight. They don't stop on the way. And when they arrive at the Western Wall, they are welcomed by an annual ceremony presided over by a rabbi.

2:11Han recites from memory the passage from the Hebrew Bible in which Jeremiah admonishes the faithful for not coming to pray in Jerusalem as regularly as the Swift visits.

2:25Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift, and the crane keep the time of their coming, but my people do not know the Lord's ordinance. There are at least 88 nesting pairs raising their young in the nooks and crannies of this western wall. Sarah Wurzel, who was born in New York and has come here to worship, says seeing the swifts here makes her feel closer to God. Every moment he is allowing these creatures to stay in the air and live. How much more so is he hovering over us every moment? I get a closer look at these scythe-winged birds about 40 centimetres across at a kindergarten in Tel Aviv where Han from the Friends of the Swifts Association helped build over 200 nesting boxes close to the roof.

3:17It's just something joyous about seeing these guys flying all around us. If you've had a bad day, it lifts the spirits. The birds fly at top speed. They can reach 90 miles per hour. They go round and around the kindergarten, making their distinctive calls. It's called a screaming party. The reason they do it now is to attract the fledglings to come up of the nest for the first flight, to start flying, to fledge. Once the fledglings take off, they may not land again for two or three years. They eat and sleep and even wash themselves on the wing, slowing their flight to catch water droplets of rainstorms.

4:05They mate in the sky, and even once they reach the breeding ground, make their nests from wisps that float in the air. They spend nearly the whole season in collecting materials in the sky, especially feathers from other birds. Swifts land only to raise their young. They mate for life, but Han says they migrate separately. They meet again here. The very same couple? OK, same couple. Reunite. This year, Iranian missile strikes in the war with Israel sent many nesting pairs fleeing, but over 30 pairs remain. Han fell in love with these birds as a champion paraglider. He says in a national competition, he once followed the Swifts.

4:51All of a sudden, I was pulled up in a thermal, and I went up with them for 25 minutes until 2 ,000 metres high. If you fly with the sun at the back, you see them completely black. And if you fly with your circle with them and they are in the sun, they are golden. I'm telling you, I was enchanted. It was magical. The experience changed Han. He has since dedicated himself to protecting the common swift, whose population is collapsing. They're facing problems all over Israel and Europe, wherever they nest, because of the new modern techniques of building. Swifts adapted to live with humans, nesting in the nooks and crannies of our buildings, but the glass facades of skyscrapers and neat constructions of cities today leaves no room for them.

5:42Han began by building nesting boxes around his daughter's school and now builds them across Israel. He rescues nestlings who fall from the inadequate spaces their parents are forced to raise them in, and he places them in the nests of other Swifts, who he says adopt them and care for them. To my amazement, each one of the parents that came to feed noticed that that new one is more hungry than the others and fed him first. From the kindergarten roof, Han looks out over the immigrant neighbourhood of Tel Aviv that we're in. All these places around here are going to be demolished and the skycrapers will be built and there will be no more room for the swifts to nest in.

6:28The nesting boxes Han helped install in this kindergarten mean that when the swifts return from Africa, they will still find homes to raise their future generations. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

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