A migratory bird

Spring has arrived, and the swallows and other birds are already angling to nest in the roof of, and under the eaves of the summer cabin. I have yet to figure out how to prevent them getting into the structure and doing more damage to my roofing insulation.

I like them, these blue-grey masters of the air with a red dot on their chests, chirping sweetly, and darting after insects. It seems a bit mean to stop them doing what they want to do, but it’s a choice between putting up with noise in the middle of the night, and not having to clean white droppings off the deck every morning I’m at the farm. Or leaving them be.

The chimney swallow, or suitsupääsuke, is the national bird of Estonia, and I thought fleetingly of calling the suvila in New Zealand pääsukese puhkus, swallow’s rest, only it would be unpronounceable to everyone except myself.

The word in Estonian means literally “little passer”, the idea of a bird that migrates. As the national bird, perhaps, this has to do with a bird that always returns home to nest, and as a herald of spring, that long-awaited season after long, cold winters. A symbol of nature reawakening, a metaphor, perhaps, for the Estonian people, reawakening after centuries of foreign occupation in 1918, and again, in 1991.

On a closer look, there are four species of swallow in Estonia; the others translate as eave swallow, cliff swallow, and boundary swallow. This compares with 83 species worldwide, divided between 19 genera.

In New Zealand, the species is the welcome swallow, having arrived here from Australia. Like myself, these aerial acrobats are descended from immigrants.

Perhaps, I too am a migratory bird, travelling in thought at least between an adopted home and an ancestral one, anticipating a second visit to Estonia in 2026. Inspiring me is a concept in Estonian, kirjateel, a writing’s journey, also one of discovery, a personal reawakening to ethnic and cultural origins.

As a national emblem, the swallow flies alongside Estonia’s coastal cliffs of limestone, stands of silver birch, and cornflowers dotted in golden fields of rye.