The Pacific swift or fork-tailed swift (''Apus pacificus'') is a species of
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
that is part of the
Swift
Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to:
* SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks
** SWIFT code
* Swift (programming language)
* Swift (bird), a family of birds
It may also refer to:
Organizations
* SWIFT ...
family. It breeds in
eastern Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...
. It is strongly
migratory, spending the northern hemisphere's winter in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
and
Australia. The general shape and blackish plumage recall its relative, the
common swift
The common swift (''Apus apus'') 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 t ...
, from which it is distinguished by a white rump band and heavily marked underparts. The sexes are identical in appearance, although young birds can be identified by pale fringes to the wing feathers that are absent in adults. This swift's main call is a screech typical of its
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
. It is one of a group of closely related Asian swifts formerly regarded as one species.
The Pacific swift is found in a wide range of climatic zones and habitats. It breeds in sheltered locations such as caves, natural rock crevices or under the roofs of houses. The nest is a half-cup of dry grass and other fine material that is gathered in flight, cemented with saliva and attached to a vertical surface. The two or three white eggs are incubated for about seventeen days to hatching. Subsequently, the chicks have a long but variable period
in the nest before they are fully fledged. When the parents cannot find sufficient food in bad weather, the young can survive for days without being fed by
metabolising body fat.
Like all members of its family, the Pacific swift feeds exclusively on insects caught in flight. It tends to hunt higher than most of its relatives other than the
white-throated needletail
The white-throated needletail (''Hirundapus caudacutus''), also known as needle-tailed swift or spine-tailed swift, is a large swift in the genus Hirundapus. It is reputed to reach speeds of up to 170 km/h (105 mph) in horizontal flight, but th ...
. The Pacific swift has a large population and extensive breeding area, and faces few threats from predators or human activities. It is classed as being of
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...
by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natur ...
.
It has occurred as far afield as the US and New Zealand, and it is a very rare vagrant in Europe.
Taxonomy
The
swift
Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to:
* SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks
** SWIFT code
* Swift (programming language)
* Swift (bird), a family of birds
It may also refer to:
Organizations
* SWIFT ...
s form the bird
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Apodidae, which is divided into several
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...
. The Pacific swift is in the Old World genus ''
Apus
Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus ...
'', which is characterised by dark, glossy
plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...
, a forked tail and sharply pointed wings.
[Chantler & Driessens (2000) p. 219.] Until recently, the Pacific swift was considered to have five
subspecies,
[Chantler & Driessens (2000) pp. 235–237.] but three have now been elevated to full species status as part of a "
fork-tailed swift Fork-tailed swift is the historic name of a kind of bird which has since been divided taxonomically into four species. It could refer to any of four different species of swifts:
*Pacific swift, ''Apus pacificus''
*Salim Ali's swift, ''Apus salimali ...
"
superspecies. The proposed name of the superspecies was formerly a synonym for the Pacific swift.
[
A 2011 study proposed the following treatment. The long-tailed birds from the ]Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the T ...
with a narrow white throat patch are separated as Salim Ali's swift
Salim Ali's swift (''Apus salimalii'') is a small bird, superficially similar to a house martin. It is, however, completely unrelated to those passerine species, since swifts are in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups ...
, ''A. salimali'', the small swifts with narrow white rumps from the Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...
of India, Nepal and Bhutan become Blyth's swift
Blyth's swift (''Apus leuconyx''), is a small bird, superficially similar to a house martin. It is, however, completely unrelated to those passerine species, since swifts are in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups are d ...
, ''A. leuconyx'', and the population that breeds in limestone caves in northern Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, characterised by a green iridescence
Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include soap bubbles, feathers, butterfly ...
and shallow tail fork, is split as Cook's swift
Cook's swift (''Apus cooki'') is a small bird, superficially similar to a house martin. It is, however, completely unrelated to those passerine species, since swifts are in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups are due to co ...
, ''A. cooki''. The remaining subspecies are the nominate
Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list.
Political office
In th ...
''A. p. pacificus'' and the southern race ''A. p. kurodae'' (which includes the Tibetan population formerly named as ''kanoi'').[ This arrangement has been accepted by the ]International Ornithological Committee
The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...
(IOC), but not the International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natur ...
. A 2012 paper showed that ''cooki'' is closely related to the dark-rumped swift
The dark-rumped swift (''Apus acuticauda'') is a species of swift in the family Apodidae.
It is found in Bhutan and Northeast India and is a vagrant to Thailand.
Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.
It is threaten ...
, ''A. acuticauda'', which should therefore be included in the ''pacificus'' clade, but made no further taxonomic recommendations.
This swift was first described by John Latham in 1801 as ''Hirundo pacifica''.[Latham (1801]
p. lviii
Scopoli
Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (sometimes Latinized as Johannes Antonius Scopolius) (3 June 1723 – 8 May 1788) was an Italian physician and naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Au ...
separated the swifts from the swallows as the genus ''Apus'' in 1777.[Scopoli (1777]
p. 483
. ''Apus'', like Apodidae, is derived from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
απους, ''apous'', meaning "without feet", a reference to the small, weak legs of these most aerial of birds,[Jobling (2010) pp. 50–51.][Kaufman (2001) p. 329.] and ''pacificus'' refers to the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
.[Jobling (2010) p. 288.]
Description
At in length, the Pacific swift is the largest of the ''Apus'' swifts.[ It has a 43-to-54-cm (17-to-21-in) wingspan.][Brazil (2009) p. 272.] Females are slightly heavier than males, averaging against .[Chantler (1999) p. 455.] It is similar in general shape to the common swift
The common swift (''Apus apus'') 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 t ...
, although slightly longer-winged and with a more protruding head. The fork of the tail is deeper, and the rump is broader. The upperparts are black, apart from a white rump band and a somewhat greyer head. The underparts are black, although white fringes to the feathers give the belly a scaly appearance when seen well from below. The tail and the upper wings are black, and the underwings are brown.[ The eyes are brown and the small bill and very short legs are black.][ The sexes are identically plumaged, and juveniles differ from the adults only in that the feathers show pale fringes, particularly on the ]wings
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is exp ...
. The southern subspecies, ''A. p. kurodae'', has a narrower white rump (15 mm/0.6 in against the nominate form's 20 mm/0.8 in), a grey throat and blacker underparts.[ Juveniles of migratory ''Apus'' swifts have a partial ]moult
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...
prior to migration, but retain the larger wing feathers. The moult is completed in the wintering grounds, where adults have a complete moult.[Chantler & Driessens (2000) pp. 38–39.]
This species is usually straightforward to identify. The white-rumped swift
The white-rumped swift (''Apus caffer'') is a species of swift. Although this small bird is superficially similar to a house martin, it is not closely related to that passerine species. The resemblances between the swallows and swifts are due t ...
is similar to Pacific swift, but its slender body and long, deeply forked tail make it appear quite different from its more powerfully built relative.[ A possible pitfall is a partially ]leucistic
Leucism () is a wide variety of conditions that result in the partial loss of pigmentation in an animal—causing white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales, or cuticles, but not the eyes. It is occasionally spelled ...
common swift with a white rump. The Pacific swift can be distinguished with care by its deeper tail fork, longer wings, bigger head, larger white throat patch and patterned underparts.[van Duivendijk (2011) p. 224.] In parts of Southeast Asia, migrating Pacific swifts pass through the resident ranges of former subspecies, and good views are then necessary to be sure of correct identification.[
]
Voice
The calls given by flocks near the breeding areas are typical swift screams, including a trilled ''tsiririri'' or harsher ''spee-eer''. They resemble the cries of the common swift, but are softer and less wheezy.[ Pacific swifts are less vocal on the wintering grounds, but produce a variety of twitters and buzzes.][Simpson & Day (2010) p. 163.]
Distribution and habitat
The nominate subspecies, ''A. p. pacificus'', breeds in eastern Asia from the Ob River
}
The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins i ...
northeast to Kamchatka
The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...
and east to the Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...
, Sakhalin
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...
and Japan.[ It is strongly migratory, wintering in southern Indonesia, Melanesia and Australia, including ]Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
. It is a common migrant through coastal Malaysia, Sumatra and Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
with "vast numbers" crossing the Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conn ...
. Subspecies ''A. p. kurodae'' breeds from southeastern Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
through eastern China to southern Japan, Taiwan and Orchid Island
Orchid Island, also known by other names, is a volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan Island. The island is part of Taiwan. It is separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is g ...
. It is a relatively short-distance migrant, wintering in the Philippines, Malaysia and northern Indonesia.[
As a powerful long-distance migrant, the nominate subspecies of Pacific swift has occurred as a vagrant far from its normal range. Birds have been recorded from Brunei, the Maldives, New Zealand and ]Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island is an island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. Regionally part of Oceania and politically a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1900, it became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 19 ...
, and there have been multiple occurrences in the Seychelles. In the US, this species is casual in the Pribilof and Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin, "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain of 14 main, ...
;[ a claimed 2010 sighting from the ]Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
will be the first for Canada and the mainland of North America if ratified. In South America, there is a 1959 record from Colombia. There are 13 European records as of 2013, from Denmark (two), Spain, Sweden (four) and the UK (seven). It is possible that this overstates the true number of visiting birds. All the listed countries had a sighting on different dates in the summer of 2013 which could be due to a single wandering bird. The four most recent English records in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2013 all included sightings at Spurn
Spurn is a narrow sand tidal island located off the tip of the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England that reaches into the North Sea and forms the north bank of the mouth of the Humber Estuary. It was a spit with a semi-permanent c ...
, East Yorkshire
The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire t ...
, and may refer to one returning individual.
A mainly aerial species, this swift is not limited to particular land habitats or climatic zones; it breeds from the Arctic to sub-tropical China, and from sea level to at least in Japan. It is often found around human habitation. It tends to winter in lowlands,[ and in Australia it is found in arid areas as well as in towns and on the coast. Flocks of thousands may appear when there are hot strong winds. Pacific swifts often travel and feed with ]white-throated needletail
The white-throated needletail (''Hirundapus caudacutus''), also known as needle-tailed swift or spine-tailed swift, is a large swift in the genus Hirundapus. It is reputed to reach speeds of up to 170 km/h (105 mph) in horizontal flight, but th ...
s. The Pacific swift probably sleeps in flight when not nesting, behaviour known to occur in the common swift and suspected in other ''Apus'' species, but there is an Australian record of these swifts roosting in a tree, and they are occasionally seen to land briefly on the ground or on vertical surfaces.
Behaviour
Breeding
Most ''Apus'' swift species nest in rocky areas, and the majority will accept human habitations as a substitute for natural sites. The Pacific swift is a colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 a ...
species that nests in sheltered locations such as caves, crevices in vertical rock faces (including sea-cliffs), or under the eaves of houses. The nest is a half-cup of feathers, dry grass and other light vegetation collected in flight, cemented with saliva and attached to a ledge or vertical surface with the same substance. Two or three eggs is the normal clutch
A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts ...
, the number varying with geographical location. In areas where three eggs are usual, a fourth may occasionally be laid; no larger clutches are known. The eggs are white, as with all swifts,[Chantler & Driessens (2000) p. 19.] and 24–27.5 × 16–17 mm (0.95–1.08 × 0.63–0.67 in) in size. They are incubated by both parents for about 17 days prior to hatching as unfeathered and blind altricial
In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, but with the aid of their parents mature after birth. Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the mome ...
chicks. Both adults brood and feed the chicks, which fledge
Fledging is the stage in a flying animal's life between hatching or birth and becoming capable of flight.
This term is most frequently applied to birds, but is also used for bats. For altricial birds, those that spend more time in vulnera ...
in an average 40.5 days.[
Swifts as a family have smaller egg clutches and much longer and more variable incubation and fledging times than ]passerine
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...
s with similarly sized eggs, resembling tubenoses
Procellariiformes is an order (biology), order of seabirds that comprises four family (biology), families: the albatrosses, the Procellariidae, petrels and shearwaters, and two families of storm petrels. Formerly called Tubinares and still call ...
in these developmental factors. Young birds reach a maximum weight heavier than their parents; they can cope with not being fed for long periods of time, and delay their feather growth when undernourished. Swifts and seabirds have generally secure nest sites, but their food sources are unreliable, whereas passerines are vulnerable in the nest but food is usually plentiful. These adaptations mean that when conditions are good, the survival rate is very high. One large Yellow Sea
The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour term ...
colony had hatching success of 73.5%, with 63.6% of the chicks fledging. The average productivity was 1.24 fledged young per pair per year.[
]
Feeding
All swifts feed on insects caught in flight, and the Pacific swift has been recorded as consuming bees, wasps, termites, moths and flies
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...
.[ A Chinese study found that it caught a wide variety of insect prey and considered that most of the species eaten were harmful to agriculture or forestry, leading to improved agricultural yield in a number of geographical domaines.] The Pacific swift tends to hunt higher than sympatric
In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species s ...
swifts, sharing its airspace mainly with white-throated needletails. It typically feeds at heights up to , only flying close to the ground in poor weather. It often forages near low-pressure area
In meteorology, a low-pressure area, low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclement weather (such as cloudy, windy, with possibl ...
s, which serve both to raise insects from the ground and to give the swifts additional lift
Lift or LIFT may refer to:
Physical devices
* Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods
** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop
** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...
. The swifts circle through the insect swarms in flocks typically of tens or hundreds of birds, although sometimes reaching tens of thousands in Australia. In Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
, Pacific swifts feed at dusk to much later hours than the common swift, sometimes until midnight, and migrants have been seen flying with bats in the Philippines. The young are fed balls of insects bound with saliva. During bad weather, increased competition leads to malnourishment within populations, where young swifts are often not fed for days and survive on stored body fat.[Chantler & Driessens (2000) pp. 32–35.]
Predators and parasites
Swifts spend most of their time in flight. Few birds have the necessary speed and agility to catch them, hobbies
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
being the main exception. The nest sites are usually sufficiently inaccessible to be beyond the reach of snakes or mammalian predators.[Chantler & Driessens (2000) pp. 36–37.]
This swift is host to feather mite
Feather mites are the members of diverse mite superfamilies:
* superorder Acariformes
** Psoroptidia
*** Analgoidea
*** Freyanoidea
*** Pterolichoidea
* superorder Parasitiformes
** Dermanyssoidea
They are ectoparasites on bird
...
s including '' Eustathia cultrifera'', '' Chauliacia canarisi'' and '' C. securigera''.[Peterson ''et al''. (2007) p. 136.] Biting parasites include the louse fly '' Crataerina pacifica'', bat bug Bat bugs are blood-sucking insect parasites that feed primarily on the blood of bats. The name has been applied to members of the family ''Cimicidae'' (e.g. '' Cimex lectularius'', '' Afrocimex constrictus'') and also to members of the family '' ...
s and sucking mites.[ ]Chewing lice
The Mallophaga are a possibly paraphyletic section of lice
Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been re ...
include two species first identified on this swift. Davaineidae tapeworms have been found as internal parasites.
Status
The Pacific swift has a very large range, exceeding 10,000,000 km2 (3,800,000 mi2).[ Its population is unknown, although it is common throughout its breeding range with no evidence of any decline. It is therefore classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of ]least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...
. There appear to be no significant threats to this bird; predation is low, and this swift is not tied to a particular habitat. Some birds may die through misadventure or become exhausted when lost on migration (the first record for the Western Palaearctic
The Western Palaearctic or Western Palearctic is part of the Palaearctic realm, one of the eight biogeographic realms dividing the Earth's surface. Because of its size, the Palaearctic is often divided for convenience into two, with Europe, North ...
was found resting on a North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
gas platform
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...
), but swifts have high survival rates and are generally long-lived. The common swift
The common swift (''Apus apus'') 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 t ...
, a close relative of the Pacific swift, has been recorded as reaching 21 years old.[
]
Notes
Citations
Cited texts
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External links
*
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q31866
Pacific swift
The Pacific swift or fork-tailed swift (''Apus pacificus'') is a species of bird that is part of the Swift family. It breeds in eastern Asia. It is strongly migratory, spending the northern hemisphere's winter in Southeast Asia and Austra ...
Birds of North Asia
Birds of East Asia
Birds of Nepal
Birds of Oceania
Pacific swift
The Pacific swift or fork-tailed swift (''Apus pacificus'') is a species of bird that is part of the Swift family. It breeds in eastern Asia. It is strongly migratory, spending the northern hemisphere's winter in Southeast Asia and Austra ...
Pacific swift
The Pacific swift or fork-tailed swift (''Apus pacificus'') is a species of bird that is part of the Swift family. It breeds in eastern Asia. It is strongly migratory, spending the northern hemisphere's winter in Southeast Asia and Austra ...