Swifts can be seen hawking for insects in the countryside, especially around open water
wings and body. They are not related to swallows and martins; they have their own order, the Apodiformes, their closest relatives being the hummingbirds of the Americas. There are more than 100 species, found in all the world’s continents apart from Antarctica. The bird we see in the UK is known as the common swift. With between 40 and 200 million individuals, it is indeed the commonest member of its family. Its scientific name, Apus apus, means ‘footless’. Although swifts do have feet, these are tiny and almost useless because the bird spends the majority of its life airborne.
LIFE ON THE WING
Swifts only come to land for two reasons: deliberately, during the short period when they are breeding; or accidentally, when driven down to the ground by bad weather. Many years ago, a friend’s mother called me to say she’d found a swift stranded on the ground after a heavy downpour. Its plumage soaked, it was unable to get airborne again. After drying it out in the warm, we released it unharmed.
Swifts feed on a range of tiny insects and other invertebrates – up to 10,000 every single day – which they catch on the wing with their broad bill. During the breeding season, they bring these back for their young in a ball (or ‘bolus’) of food containing several hundred insects. But if bad weather prevents them catching their prey, they may head several hundred miles away, only returning when the weather system has passed, sometimes many days later. Uniquely among British birds, their offspring are able to enter a state of torpor, lowering their bodily metabolism so they can survive without food.
Once a young swift has left its nest, it will fly almost immediately south to Africa. It will return north each spring, then head south again in late summer. It will not land for three to four years, when it is old enough to breed.
The poet laureate Ted Hughes once wrote of the returning swifts: “They’ve made it again, which means the globe’s still working.” Let’s hope that this spring – and for many years to come – they continue to return from their home in Africa to delight and astonish us, as they tear maniacally across the screaming sky.