Flying Colours

The Swift is a medium-sized aerial bird, which is a superb flier.

It evens sleeps, eats and mates on the wing! It is plain sooty brown, but in flight against the sky it appears black.

It has long, scythe-like wings and a short, forked tail.

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Breeding, Nesting, & Migration

It is a summer visitor, breeding across the UK, but most numerously in the south and east.

It winters in Africa.Swifts arrive at the beginning of May, having travelled thousands of miles in a matter of days.

Young birds may have been flying continuously for many months if not years before returning to the place of their birth.

They will spend a season or two as “prospecting birds” checking out potential future nesting spots until they reach sexual maturity at three years old.

Long-lived, mature birds mate for life and return to the same nest site year on year typically in the eaves of old buildings.

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Adaptations & Features

‍A number of unusual adaptations allow them to live on the wing:

• They can let half their brains go to sleep while the other half takes care of the flying
• They bathe by flying slowly through rain
• They drink by flying low over water and sipping and the eat huge amounts and varieties of flying insects.  
• They range far and wide for hundreds of miles in search of food on a daily basis if necessary and if they are away from the nest for long the chicks enter a torpid state until the parents return to conserve energy.
• As soon as the chicks are fledged they leave, usually in August, but the adults make their presence known screaming overhead often in large numbers.

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Modern building practices make it increasingly difficult for swifts to find nesting sites and their numbers have been declining as a result.

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Statistics

‍Length: 16-17cm

Wingspan: 45cm

Weight: 44g

Average lifespan: 9 years

Conservation status: Classified in the UK as Amber under the Birds of Conservation Concern 4: the Red List for Birds (2015).