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Thousands of baby swifts scorched by heatwave in Spain
The tiny fledglings are “being cooked” as temperatures soar relentlessly across Spain
The mercury reached a staggering 42ºC in southern Spain this week and sadly, the heatwave coincided with the hatching period of swifts, a protected species. In Seville and Cordoba, hundreds of baby birds desperately scrambled from their nests too early in search of cooler temperatures, only to die on the roads.
“You would walk down the street and there would be 100 chicks, lying at the foot of a building, some dying and some barely alive,” described biologist Elena Moreno Portillo of Ecourbe, a Seville-based conservation association.
The heatwave is the earliest in 40 years in Spain and given that swifts traditionally build their nests in roofs or facades of houses, there is no escape from the blistering temperatures.
“Our buildings are usually made of concrete or metal plates and these get very hot. So it becomes an oven and the chicks, who can’t fly yet, rush out because they can’t stand the temperature inside,” Ms Moreno Portillo said. “They’re literally being cooked.”
Volunteers in Seville and Cordoba scoured the streets for the injured hatchlings, while a similar operation was organised in Barcelona, and around 400 of the baby birds have been transferred to specialist rescue centres where they can hopefully be saved and released once they are strong enough.
This is only a drop in the ocean, however, as the expert believes thousands of swifts will have succumbed to the heat all across Spain.
According to meteorologists, summer is now arriving in Spain up to 40 days earlier, putting the survival of the swift species in jeopardy.
“By mid-July, it is likely that many of these birds would have been able to fly. But they got caught in the heatwave and didn’t have time,” Ms Moreno Portillo concluded.
Image: Ecourbe
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