In 2012, we occasionally posted news about swifts whose arrival or treatment in the clinic was accompanied by unusual stories. In some of these cases, we did not tell you the end of the story. In the following weeks, we are going to tell you, what became of these special patients.

Do you remember...

...Taxi Driver Robert de Niro?

This young bird spent some time as a stowaway in a Frankfurt cab before he was found and immediately brought to the clinic on July 1st. He was emaciated, but did not suffer from any physical injuries. Well-fed and vivid, he took off into the air on July 20th.

... our ringed patient Ciara?

Ciara was found on June 6th in Bad Homburg and brought to the clinic the day after. Because of her physical condition, she was most likely attacked by a cat when sitting on the ground for some reason. She was wearing a ring, so it was easy to easy to trace her back to Erich Kaiser's swift colony in Kronberg, where she received the ring in May 2011. It took a couple of weeks until her damaged feathers grew again and she finally received 8 new feathers before being successfully released on August 23rd.

...the astonishingly tame adult swift Remus?

Remus was found in Jena, suffering from a blunt trauma. He was in care with his finder for a couple of days, before being transferred to the swift clinic using car pooling. This swift was so accustomed to humans and tame that the clinic teams suspects that as a nestling, he was probably fostered by humans. In the following days, his condition significantly improved. He completely recovered and started into liberty on July 16th.

To be continued...