Swifts | Apodiformes

Gierzwaluwachtigen | Vencejos

Small birds built almost wholly for flight: the upper arm bone is extremely short and the hand long, so that the wing is a narrow, stiff blade driven from the shoulder joint and barely bent at the elbow. The feet are small and weak, with short legs and sharp claws; they are no use for walking and serve to hook the bird onto a vertical surface. Energy use is high, and in cold weather with few insects both young and adults can let their body temperature fall and pass into torpor until conditions turn. The clutch is small and the eggs white; the young hatch naked and helpless and stay in the nest a long time for their size.

Families in this order

Swifts | Apodidae7 speciesA cigar-shaped body, long scythe-like wings held stiff in a glide, and a short tail, square or forked; the bill is tiny, but the gape tears open to below the eye, so that the head itself is the net. Everything happens in the air: the catching of drifting insects and spiders, drinking, bathing, picking up nest material, mating, and outside the breeding season sleeping too, circling at height. The catch is bound together in the throat with saliva into a ball and given to the chick in one delivery; the nest is a shallow cup of material caught on the wing, also glued with saliva, in a crevice, under a roof tile or in a chimney. One to three white eggs, a long stay in the nest, and a fledgling that leaves with a fully grown wing and is independent from that moment; the four short toes carry strong hooked claws and in many species can all be turned to point forward.