Unintentional Clickbait and the Swallow Mystery.

Last night I published a post entitled ‘The Moon and the Matter of Resurrection’ and today it’s received at least ten times more page views than my posts usually get. That’s a lot and I’m tempted to ask myself why.

What’s most noticeable is that they nearly all come from Italy, and I think I’m probably right in believing that the Christian religion is still close to the heart of Italian culture. That’s what’s giving me cause for concern. It occurs to me, you see, that the word ‘resurrection’ might be responsible for the high incidence of visits. To a committed Christian, the word Resurrection – especially when spelt with a capital R – is indelibly associated with the rise of Jesus from the dead after the crucifixion, and so maybe the use of the word in the post title triggered pings (or whatever the term might be) or a response to searches. And so, since the post itself neither contained nor implied any reference to the Passion of Christ, the title might have inadvertently acted as clickbait.

I can assure you that such was not my intention. I despise clickbait as much as anybody, and I do feel truly sorry if people have been directed to my blog through misapprehension and found something different from what they were expecting.

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So what about the mystery of the swallows?

For several years now I’ve been bemoaning the near-disappearance of swallows from the Shire skies. This year I’ve seen a very small number of them on only three or four occasions throughout the whole summer, mostly at the top of my lane about half a mile away.

I was, therefore, more than a little surprised when I went into my garden yesterday afternoon to find myself caught up in a swallow feeding frenzy. They were impossible to count due to the speed of their flight and aerobatics, but I’d say there were 10-20 of them racing madly around in and above my garden. Some of them were flying within a foot or two of my head. And this is what’s odd:

This summer was the nineteenth I’ve spent in this house, and never before have swallows hunted in and above my garden. I used to get House Martins up to a few years ago, but never swallows. So why, when they seem to be on the verge of extinction in this part of the world, did they suddenly turn up in substantial numbers yesterday? (And again today, incidentally.)

And that takes me to what I’ve often said here – that I can’t help entertaining the suspicion that birds behaving out of character or counter to normal habits are harbingers of something deeply meaningful. The problem comes with never knowing what it is. And more to the point, does this something apply to all of us or only me?

Maybe I should stop watching videos from that young Welsh woman shaman on YouTube. She’s highly compelling, but maybe it’s better not to know.