Swallow
£25.00
A lot of lies about swallows, from the ‘Lies About Birds’ series. (Scroll down to read the text.) Illustrated with a poor photograph of a paper bird I have made out of old RSPB magazines.
A4 print, mounted (and put in a cellophane bag to prevent escapes).
(Please note that, regretfully, I don’t send work outside of the UK.)
1 in stock
“Proper experts on telly often call a swallow a ‘barn swallow.’ This is lazy shorthand for their full name which is ‘barnstormer swallow.’ Barnstormers were exciting, dare-devil pilots who performed death-defying tricks and stunts to entertain the crowds. Swallows – the joy of flight in feathered form – do all that but don’t bother with the aircraft. Arriving in April they whoosh, swoop and chatter through the British summer, the males sporting extravagant tail feathers like handlebar moustaches. They have just five months to raise several broods of youngsters to be expert fliers before they all head back to Africa. In early September swallows gather together on electricity wires, chattering excitedly. They are using the wires as washing lines to dry their underwear before migration. And then they are gone, back to Africa to bask in the warmth of good weather and drunken tales of derring-do. But they know they will come back. They have to, summer won’t happen without them.”
