Swift

Names & Nicknames: Swift, common swift, European swift, Eurasian swift

Size: Swifts are pretty middle of the road when it comes to bird size, not as tiny as some hummingbird species but certainly no California condor! They grow to around 17cm in length with a wingspan of 48cm and at around 50 grams in weight, they weigh about as much as a couple of AA batteries.

Communication: A swifts main form of communication is to scream (seems reasonable). In fact, they will often form ‘screaming parties’ where a group of 10-20 swifts will fly around together during summer evenings in the nesting areas, to scream out into the wind to be answered by nesting swifts. Why they do this is uncertain, maybe it is to help bond, maybe it's to keep track of where everyone is, or maybe it's just good fun!

Favourite Hangout: A swifts true favourite hangout is in the air, they can go for a staggering 10 months straight without landing! When they do have to land it is to nest, and whereas historically they would have nested in cavities in trees and cliffs, they now much prefer urban settings, particularly under eaves and in roof spaces.

Epic Journeys: Swifts have one of the longest migration journeys of any bird, with some travelling an incredible 22,000km in a single year, That is like going from New York to LA, over 5 times! Swifts spend the summers at their European breeding sites, before flying to Equatorial and Sub-Saharan Africa for a sunny winter, I mean can you blame them?

Glow-up: Female swifts lay 1-4 eggs in a nest which both parents will help incubate for about 20 days. When the big day arrives, the chicks enter the world blind and naked, they need to be kept warm, fed, and require constant attention, I am sure all new mothers can relate!

Facts: This Species Spotlight has gone some way to cover just how incredible swifts and their flying abilities are. Most incredibly of all is perhaps the fact that they can sleep while flying. Yes you read that right, they can be zooming through the air at almost 70mph (they are the fastest flying bird in level flight) and also be getting their 40 winks. They are thought to be able to do this, by basically putting one half of their brain to sleep at a time, so while that half is getting some shut-eye, the other half is making sure they don't plummet to the ground!

Who are they in the friendship group: Constantly on the move and always part of a group

Favourite Snack: Since swifts are in the air whilst snacking, their preferred prey is what they can find up there, flying insects and airborne spiders. Other than that they aren't fussy, mosquitoes, moths, flies, and aphids are all on the menu as these aerial acrobats hoover up as many as 100,000 insects each day!

Eating Habits: Swifts are masters of eating on the go, catching all their prey whilst soaring through the skies. They use their incredible aerial agility to snag flying insects with their beaks. It’s a bad day to be a mosquito when swifts are about!

Toilet Humour: It’s waste not want not in a swift household. Like many birds, swift chicks will do their business in the form of a tidy little poop sack. But the parents like to keep a clean nest, so when it comes time to tidy up, they will usually eat the poop sack, thereby cleaning up and also getting some valuable nutrients, yuuuuum!

Love Language: When we say swifts do pretty much everything in the air, we mean pretty much everything. And that can include the bird and the the bees activities. Swifts form very strong bonds and often mate for life and return to the same nest sites where they will preen each other and ‘mate frequently’. And while they do like a nest romp, they are also incredibly capable of mating while flying, though this can also sometimes be where a swifts bond is tested, and some hanky-panky with other swifts outside the pair has been known to occur…

If you see them: Apart from when they are darting through the skies in flocks, ranging from a few individuals to potentially thousands, you are most likely to encounter swifts when they are nesting. If you do find a pair nesting on your property, please treat them with care, in some countries such as the UK they are protected by law, plus, all they want to do is be left alone and raise their chicks.

Red Flags: A few things swifts love, good nest-building sites, and tasty tasty insects. So when nest sites are lost due to renovations and modern building designs not being full of good nest crevices, and insect numbers are plummeting due to pesticide use and climate change, swifts could begin to get into trouble!