David Element
Wildlife Photography and Digital Video Images
______________________________________________________________________________________________Birds 145 – Common Swifts
COMMON
SWIFT Apus apus
COMMON
SWIFT Apus apus
COMMON
SWIFT Apus apus
·
Common
Swifts Apus apus are exclusively summer
visitors to the UK, usually arriving during the first week of May (although the
exact date will vary according to the prevailing weather conditions during
their migration) and departing at the end of the summer. Their arrival will be
noticed as it is accompanied by their high-pitched and not particularly musical
shrieks. These birds are so well suited to the airborne life that practically
the only activity that they cannot undertake in mid-air is laying eggs (and of
course building the nests in the roofs of accessible houses to lay them in!).
Dedicated nest-boxes can be purchased to accommodate them. Swifts are
wonderfully streamlined and because of their rapid flight only likely to be
predated upon by fast-flying and mobile falcons such as the Eurasian Hobby Falco subbuteo
and the Peregrine Falcon Falco
peregrinus.
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