It can stay airborne for more than 6 months at a stretch without landing.
From Alpine Swift
It holds the record for continuous flight of any bird: geolocators fitted to Swiss birds showed that they spend more than two hundred days in a row on the wing during the African winter, without landing once.
From Alpine Swift
It eats, drinks, mates and sleeps on the wing: at dusk it climbs to more than two thousand metres and glides half-asleep, resting the two brain hemispheres in turn.
From Alpine Swift
It nests behind waterfalls: it fixes the nest to the wet rock behind the curtain of water, and the adults fly through the fall to come and go, a place practically inaccessible to any predator.
From White-collared Swift
Its flocks range tens of kilometres a day following concentrations of insects, and can appear in and vanish from a valley within hours.
From White-collared Swift
Like all swifts it can barely perch: its feet serve only to cling to vertical surfaces, and it spends practically its whole life in the air.
From White-collared Swift
Very like the common swift, but rather slower in flight and browner.
From Pallid Swift
It can go months on end without landing: it eats, drinks, mates and sleeps in flight, climbing at dusk to more than two thousand metres to spend the night gliding half asleep.
From Pallid Swift

Ecosystems