Hundreds of baby swifts in southern Spain have died after leaving their nests prematurely, in what ecologists described as an attempt to escape the extreme temperatures during one of the country’s earliest heatwaves on record.
Concerns were raised for the protected species late last week after residents in Seville and Córdoba noticed dozens of recently hatched birds scattered across sidewalks.
“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,” said the biologist Elena Moreno Portillo of Ecourbe, a Seville-based association dedicated to conservation in urban areas.
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Hundreds of baby swifts in southern Spain have died after leaving their nests prematurely, in what ecologists described as an attempt to escape the extreme temperatures during one of the country’s earliest heatwaves on record.
Concerns were raised for the protected species late last week after residents in Seville and Córdoba noticed dozens of recently hatched birds scattered across sidewalks.
“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,” said the biologist Elena Moreno Portillo of Ecourbe, a Seville-based association dedicated to conservation in urban areas.
Too hot to live.