16/06/2026
THE HOLE IN YOUR WALL WAS NOT EMPTY.
IT WAS THE ONLY DOOR MY CHICKS KNEW.
You may look up at an old house and see only a crack.
A gap under the eaves.
A small dark hole in brick or soffit.
Something easy to seal.
Easy to repair.
Easy to make neat.
To us, it is a defect.
To a swift, it can be an address remembered across continents.
I am a common swift.
I spend most of my life in the sky.
I feed there.
Drink there.
Sleep there.
Travel there.
Cross countries there.
Cross deserts there.
Cross seas there.
And after all that distance, I return not to “a roof.”
Not to “a street.”
Not even to “a house.”
I return to one opening.
One narrow entrance.
One exact little darkness where my chicks wait.
They do not know another exit.
They do not know another sky.
If that hole is sealed while they are inside, the wall does not simply become tidier.
It becomes a closed mouth.
A blocked future.
An adult may keep circling.
Calling.
Landing on the brick.
Clinging near the place where air used to be.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Because instinct does not understand fresh mortar.
Because love does not know what “renovation” means.
And inside, the chicks do not cry to the whole street.
They wait.
They trust the doorway they were given.
That is what makes this cruelty so quiet.
Please, before repairing roofs, soffits, fascias, eaves, vents, or cracks in spring and summer, check for nesting swifts.
If swifts are screaming around a building, entering holes, or circling one wall repeatedly, stop and seek wildlife advice.
Avoid sealing active nest sites during the breeding season.
Where repairs are needed, use timing and mitigation.
Install swift bricks or nest boxes.
Leave access where possible.
Because the hole in your wall was not empty.
It was the only door my chicks knew.
And after flying half the world to return,
I came home
to find that home had been erased with a trowel.
