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  Profile

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  In flight

Speed Demons

Common Swift

Apus apus

• uncommon
• 111 km/h
• Least Concern

Sleeps, eats, and mates in flight. Doesn't land for up to 10 months. Committed courier.

Population

Very large global population, roughly estimated in the tens of millions of mature individuals (BirdLife International/IUCN); declining in parts of Europe though not enough to change the global category

Habitat

Aerial forager over open country, towns, and cities; nests in cavities in buildings (roof spaces, eaves, gables), on cliffs, and occasionally in tree holes — historically an old-forest cavity nester before adapting to human structures

Fun fact

Non-breeding Common Swifts can remain continuously airborne for up to ten months at a stretch, eating, drinking, and even sleeping on the wing, racking up a lifetime flight distance on the order of 4 million miles.

Range

Breeds across Eurasia from Portugal and Ireland east to China and Siberia; migrates to winter in equatorial and sub-equatorial Africa

Diet

Aerial insects and airborne spiders caught exclusively in flight ("aerial plankton")

Size

0.165 m

Wingspan

0.39 m

Lifespan

18 years