NL·0268Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Apus apus
- Family
- Apodidae
- Native to
- Breeds across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia to China; winters in sub-Saharan Africa
- Habitat
- Open air, Urban, Temperate forest
On eBird ↗
Common Swift
Live sightings near you, the range map, bar charts of when it is seen, and Macaulay Library photos and recordings.
Common swift
Apus apus
Also calledSumama (Arabic) · Badkhorak (Persian) · Ebabil (Turkish) · Mauersegler (German) · Martinet noir (French) · Vencejo común (Spanish)
A sooty, sickle-winged bird that lives almost entirely in the air, feeding, drinking, mating and sleeping on the wing. Screaming parties race around old buildings on summer evenings before the birds return to Africa.
The common swift is a medium-sized bird, superficially similar to the barn swallow or house martin but somewhat larger, though not stemming from those passerine species, being in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar contextual development. The swifts' nearest relatives are the New World hummingbirds and the Southeast Asian treeswifts. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iTracked birds remained airborne for up to 10 months without landing, outside the breeding season
- iiSleeps in brief glides at altitude during the night
- iiiChicks can survive several days without food in cold weather by entering torpor
- ivFeeds on aerial plankton, gathering balls of hundreds of insects to bring to chicks
In the field
Field marks
- aSooty brown-black all over with a small pale throat
- bLong, narrow, scythe-shaped wings
- cShort forked tail
- dNever perches on wires or the ground
- Voice
- A shrill, drawn-out scream, 'sreeeee', usually from groups in fast flight.
- Not to be confused with
- Barn swallows and house martins have white or rufous underparts and broader wings, and perch on wires. Pallid swift (Mediterranean) is paler brown with a larger pale throat and blunter wingtips. Alpine swift is larger with a white belly.
- Where to see it
- Over old towns and cities across Europe and western Asia from May to July; Oxford University Museum tower hosts a colony studied since 1948.
- When
- Summer visitor late Apr–Aug; among the last to arrive and first to leave
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Life & habits
- Diet
- Flying insects and airborne spiders
- Habitat
- Open skies; nests in holes under roofs, in walls and in towers, and in old tree holes in northern forests
- Size
- 16–17 cm; wingspan 40–44 cm; 35–50 g
- Lifespan
- Often 5–10 years; ringed birds have reached about 18
Gangs of screaming swifts chase low around rooftops in the evening, then climb high into the sky to roost on the wing.
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Breeds across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia to China; winters in sub-Saharan Africa
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
Woodcuts and engravings matched from the Source Library’s scanned books by name. Plates marked “relative” show a close kin rather than this exact species. Click a plate to read the page it came from, with translation.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Apus apus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
Ted Hughes wrote in 'Swifts' that 'they've made it again, which means the globe's still working', and David Lack's 'Swifts in a Tower' (1956) described the Oxford Museum colony.
Curiosity
Tagged by Swedish researchers in 2013–2014, some swifts stayed aloft for their entire ten-month non-breeding period.
Kinship
Fact-checked: 1 correction made to this sheet. Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 6638.