Vaux Swift

As my better half and I were waiting to catch the bus to have our Sunday dinner out, I spotted one of the Red Kites. We were able to share the delight at seeing this magnificent bird. I knew that I had chosen the right partner.

Following a really good meal, I stepped outside for a cigarette. While outside the pub, one that had been owned by Vaux a local brewery, before the brewery was closed down. A complex situation where the company that owned the brewery closed down the business as the land that the brewery occupied was more valuable as building land than as a brewery The land is still undeveloped.

It was a shame as the beers they brewed were very good and I miss them. The company though had a logo that had a pair of birds on them. I had tried to identify the birds but had concluded that they were stylised birds rather than genuine ones. But as I looked up at the sign on the pub building I realised what they were. Vaux Swifts.

As my regular and long suffering reader will know, I get a number of podcasts relating to wildlife and natural history matters. Via one Terra Life on Earth was a film in four parts about the Vaux Swift and a school in Portland where they roosted. The decent into the chimney has become a spectator sport.

I had thought about posting about the film at the time, as it was wonderful to see and hear a community looking after the birds in this way. However, I was to busy when the videos were podcast and it took me a while to watch the film. Then I heard via a podcast of another US radio programme that the film was being shown on PBS. And again it did make me wonder if there was a connection between the man who had named the bird and the brewing family.

This I still don't know for sure, but it seems there is and the Vaux Swift became the logo for the brewery. As the Vaux swift is an American chimney swift, and Vaux is not a common name, logic tells me that there is a connection. So perhaps its not so much hands across the Atlantic but wings.