I was lucky to see some of these swifts in Languedoc Roussillon last week; the area around the Hotel de Thermes in Molitg les Bains (Pays Catalan). Are they Pallid Swift? And the other image here is Hawfinch (nice to get a photo of on the ground, and looking at me too!). The juvenile swifts were so lovely and obliging. I wasn't sure if they were also lifting mud, but the others seemed to be obsessed with it. They flew to large nearby rocks (nests, presumably) and on the banks of a fine river.