Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift

The lesser swallow-tailed swift is a slender species, 12.7–13 cm (5.0–5.1 in) long, and weighing about 18 g (0.63 oz). It has long narrow wings and a long forked tail, which is usually held tightly closed. It is mainly black with a white throat and upper breast and squarish white patches on the rear flanks. The sexes are similar.

The lesser swallow-tailed swift is found from eastern Mexico's Veracruz state south through every country of Central America into Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. It is also found throughout the entire Amazon Basin, in a narrow strip along Brazil's southeastern coast, and on Trinidad. It inhabits the edges and clearing of lowland tropical evergreen forest and secondary forest, cultivated areas, river corridors, and human-populated areas. In elevation it reaches 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in Guatemala and Ecuador though it typically is found lower.

Like all swifts, the lesser swallow-tailed swift is an aerial insectivore. Though its diet has not been detailed, in a study in Venezuela it fed mainly on Diptera with smaller numbers of Homoptera and Hymenoptera and very small numbers from other orders. It is less gregarious than other swifts and is usually seen as individuals or pairs. If other swift species are present it will normally feed above them, although it stays below Cypseloides species such as chestnut-collared swift.