Sarah Gibson worked in the conservation sector for over twenty years, soaking up knowledge of nature in all its wondrous variety. When she moved into a town and discovered swifts, she was swept off her feet by the story of their extraordinary, aerial existence. `Their lives are utterly different from ours and yet we live under the same roof in summer. I hoped that by writing a book about swifts I could inspire more people to take action to help them.¿

A lyrical interweaving of natural history and social history, presenting the complexities of the bird that eats, drinks, sleeps and mates in the air, seldom lighting at all and for this reason enduringly capturing the public imagination.