An Israeli paraglider tries to save migrating swifts that nest in the Western Wall

JERUSALEM — Every spring at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a rabbi presides over a ceremony to welcome the arrival of the common swift in its great migration about 2,800 miles from Africa.Between February and June, men's and women's prayers at the wall mix with the calls of the birds that swoop and dart above this ancient religious site.These scythe-winged birds, researchers believe, have raised their young in the nooks and crannies of these stones since Herodian times, two millennia ago.

Researchers have counted 88 nests in recent years.Modern translations of the Bible quote Jeremiah contrasting the regular visits of the swifts with the failure of many of the faithful to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem: "Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times / And the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow / Observe the time of their coming / But My people do not know the judgment of the Lord.""The connection between birds and the Torah is very deep," says Sarah Wurtzel, an Israeli resident born in New York, who has come with her family to pray at the wall.

She says seeing the swifts here makes her feel closer to God."Every moment he is allowing these creatures to stay in the air and live, how much more so is he hovering over us every moment? And it's that protection that I feel when I see them and hear them." Listen to NPR's State of the World podcast, a human perspective on global stories in just a few minutes, every weekday.In the modern-day contested Jerusalem, swifts have been invoked by artists as a uniting symbol of peace.

The birds, unconstrained by politics and religion, are a ubiquitous site in the Old City that hosts holy sites for the world's three largest monotheistic religions.As well as the Western Wall, they have been known to nest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Church of the Holy Sepulchre.British artist Mark Coreth worked with Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities to craft a sculpture inspiring unity — his work, an olive tree with a cano...