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About swifts
The swift is one of the last summer migrants to arrive in the UK and the first to leave. 'Screaming' calls reveal the presence of parties of swifts flying above towns and cities.
Studies of swifts have revealed some startling facts - particularly their ability to fly long distances. It is estimated that swifts fly an average daily total of 800 km - nearly 500 miles! That's about 2 million km (more than 1.24 million miles) in a lifetime!
A life on the wing
Swifts spend their life almost entirely on the wing and even feed, sleep and mate in flight. They feed exclusively on insects and only come to land when nesting.
They hunt for insects over a wide area and range of habitats from meadows, open water and over woods to the skies above towns and cities. An abundant supply of insects is critical for their survival. Parent swifts collect lots of insects to take back to their chicks - up to 1,000 at once which make a big bulge in their throat. When they have chicks to feed, swifts can gather as many as 100,000 insects a day.
'Our' swifts fly across the Sahara desert in autumn, and some even go as far south as South Africa! Others don't go quite as far and stay around central Africa. It's a long journey, but they don't hang around: one young bird left its nest in Oxford and flew all the way to Madrid in just three days!
As a group, swifts are the fastest birds in level flight. The peregrine is the officially the fastest bird, but only in a steep dive called a stoop. Our swift holds the record for the fastest proven, recording an impressive top speed of 69.3 mph (111.6 kph) in a recent study. The needle-tailed swift of Africa and Asia has been reported to reach over 100 mph, but this is yet to be officially proven.
Good neighbours
Sharing your house with swifts is a great privilege. They are unobtrusive when nesting and make perfect, quiet neighbours.
Once more common nesting in cliffs and caves, swifts use roof spaces in buildings where they construct a simple nest. These can be hard to locate because swifts enter and leave quietly through a narrow opening (usually measuring 25-35 mm by 60-70 mm) and leave few, if any, droppings below the entrance.
Swifts incubate their eggs for between 19 and 25 days. For a bird that's used to flying all the time, it must be difficult for them to keep still for so long. So, to keep in shape, they perform 'press-ups' using their wings!
Identification
Swifts can be confused with three similar, but unrelated species: the swallow, house martin and sand martin. In built-up areas, the house martin is the most likely confusion species.
Last modified: 06 May 2009