by Matthew Cobb
Today’s 2-minute ‘Tweet of the day’ on BBC Radio 4 was devoted to my favourite bird, the Common Swift, Apus apus. You can listen to David Attenborough’s brief programme here.
For many European readers, the sight and sound of swifts is the sign that summer is a-coming. As this excellent video from Denmark shows, they fly round in groups, making screeching noises that are incredibly evocative. The reason for the noise is not known, but may be simply a way of sticking together (why?):
As the latin name – Apus apus – indicates, they have short legs and small feet, with very sharp claws that enable them to cling onto surfaces near their nests. Rumour has it that a swift that falls to the ground will not be able to launch itself and fly unless it is near a cliff edge.
Swifts are the last of the migratory birds to arrive in Europe from Africa (they arrive in early May) and the first to leave (mid-August). Other migrants, such as house martins, can stay on into late September. It’s partly this brief sojourn in Europe which makes them so precious to people. When I lived in Paris, the swifts would go screeching round the courtyard of my building, flying a metre away from my balcony.
Last year was a dreadful summer, and in Manchester, where I live, the swifts disappeared in July – either dying from hunger or deciding that it simply wasn’t worth hanging around trying to rear a brood in such awful conditions. I spotted my first swift of the year over the weekend, flying over the woods near my home.
According to a widely-believed story, R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire fighter aircraft that became so iconic for the British in WW2 was inspired in his design by watching swifts. Whatever the case, the astonishing manoeuvrability of the bird far far exceeds that of the aeroplane.
If you are on Twitter, follow @SaveourSwifts for the latest news and sightings in the UK and Continental Europe.
I think cuckoos probably leave before swifts – they don’t hang about much & fly off in July.
Apus Apus? As if there aren’t enough cats on this site already ! 😉
In case you didn’t know THIS is your Spit Mk IXb “Mylcraine’s” website
Tally Ho!
🙂
Yup, near Bristol I saw my first swift on Saturday and the next day dozens of them near the local reservoir. Always a good sign spring is here.
I wonder if their vocalization is to use echolocation to gauge the proximity of obstacles. That would be useful even in the daytime.
That thought had occurred to me too.
There was a report a few days ago about a fossil bird thought to be the common ancestor of the swift and the hummingbird, two birds with very different flight characteristics.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2013/05/01/hummingbird-ancestor-reveals-evolution-of-its-unique-flight/
The article http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1761/20130580
A video taken in the small Georgian city Telavi. Lots of swifts in the early morning shots when no one had hyet gotten up.
We have swifts nesting under the roofs here in our Copenhagen building. Swifts are my absolute favourites. The sounds and the flight of these birds are amazing. The way they fly rocket-speeds directly towards the wall and then just fold the wings and disappear into the nesting hole almost invisible to us is terrifying and exhilerating.
When we sit on the balcony on a summers evening, we enjoy the swifts amazing aerial antics until it gets too dark … then the bats come out and use the same hunting grounds only slightly less elegantly.