The grey-rumped swift or gray-rumped swift (''Chaetura cinereiventris'') 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 ...

in subfamily Apodinae of the swift family

Apodidae The swifts are a family, Apodidae, of highly aerial birds. They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes with hummingbirds. The treeswifts are closely ...

.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 6. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v6_Dec21.zip retrieved August 7, 2022 It is found in Honduras,

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...

, Costa Rica, and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

; in every mainland South American country except

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

, and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

; in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, small ...

; and on Grenada.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved July 24, 2022

Taxonomy and systematics

The grey-rumped swift has these seven subspecies: *''C. c. phaeopygos'' Hellmayr, 1906 *''C. c. lawrencei'' Ridgway, 1893 *''C. c. schistacea''

Todd Todd or Todds may refer to: Places ;Australia: * Todd River, an ephemeral river ;United States: * Todd Valley, California, also known as Todd, an unincorporated community * Todd, Missouri, a ghost town * Todd, North Carolina, an unincorporated ...

, 1937 *''C. c. guianensis'' Hartert, E.J.O., 1892 *''C. c. occidentalis'' Berlepsch & Taczanowski, 1884 *''C. c. sclateri'' Pelzeln, 1868 *''C. c. cinereiventris'' Sclater, P.L., 1862 The grey-rumped swift, pale-rumped swift (''C. egregia''),

band-rumped swift The band-rumped swift (''Chaetura spinicaudus'') is a species of bird in subfamily Apodinae of the swift family Apodidae. It is found from Panama south through Colombia into Ecuador, east from Venezuela into the Guianas and Brazil, and on Trini ...

(''C. spinicaudus''), and

Lesser Antillean swift The Lesser Antillean swift (''Chaetura martinica'') is a species a species of bird in subfamily Apodinae of the swift family Apodidae.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital c ...

(''C. martinica'') were at one time placed in genus ''Acanthylis''. Some authors have suggested that the grey-rumped and pale-rumped swifts are

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

. Others have suggested that all of the grey-rumped subspecies except 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 ...

''C. c. cinereiventris'' belong to another species under the

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms *Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials * Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition ...

''C. sclateri''.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022

Description

The grey-rumped swift is about long and weighs about . It has a protruding head, a short square tail, and wings that bulge in the middle and somewhat hook at the end. The sexes are alike. Adults of the nominate subspecies have mostly glossy black upperparts with a wide gray rump and uppertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are s ...

. Their underparts are a lighter gray than the rump, though darker on the undertail coverts. Juveniles are essentially the same as adults with the addition of pale fringes to many of the wing feathers. Subspecies ''C. c. phaeopygos'' differs from the nominate only by having pale undertail coverts. ''C. c. lawrencei'' has slightly darker underparts than the nominate and black undertail coverts that contrast with the belly. ''C. c. schistacea'' has darker upperparts than the nominate, with a steely blue gloss, and also deep gray underparts. ''C. c. guianensis'' is almost identical to the nominate. ''C. c. occidentalis'' and ''C. c. sclateri'' have the darkest rumps of all the subspecies and blackish gray bellies.

Distribution and habitat

The subspecies of grey-rumped swift are found thus: *''C. c. phaeopygos'', northeastern Honduras and from eastern Nicaragua through Costa Rica into northwestern Panama *''C. c. lawrencei'', northern Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, and Grenada *''C. c. schistacea'', the Andes from western Venezuela's Mérida state into eastern Colombia's

Boyacá Department Boyacá () is one of the thirty-two departments of Colombia, and the remnant of Boyacá State, one of the original nine states of the "United States of Colombia". Boyacá is centrally located within Colombia, almost entirely within the mount ...

*''C. c. guianensis'', eastern Venezuela and western Guyana *''C. c. occidentalis'', from western Colombia through western Ecuador into extreme northwestern Peru's Tumbes department *''C. c. sclateri'', patchily in southern Venezuela, southern Colombia, northwestern Brazil's upper

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Boli ...

, eastern Peru, and northwestern Bolivia *''C. c. cinereiventris'', southeastern Brazil south from

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest ...

through eastern Paraguay into Argentina's

Misiones Province Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes ...

The grey-rumped swift inhabits a variety of landscapes including lowland

tropical evergreen forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, disco ...

montane Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial ...

evergreen forest An evergreen forest is a forest made up of evergreen trees. They occur across a wide range of climatic zones, and include trees such as conifers and holly in cold climates, eucalyptus, Live oak, acacias, magnolia, and banksia in more temperat ...

, seasonally flooded tropical evergreen forest, and

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

. In elevation it ranges from sea level to .

Behavior

Migration

The grey-rumped swift is a year-round resident in most or all of its range. In Paraguay and Argentina it is possibly only a breeding species but there is evidence that it is resident there as well.

Feeding

Like all swifts, the grey-rumped is an aerial insectivore. It usually forages in flocks, typically of 20 to 40 birds. The flocks may be of it alone but may also have a mix of swift species and even swallows. Its diet includes flying ants, bees, wasps, beetles, and flies.

Breeding

The grey-rumped swift's breeding season varies throughout its range; examples are between September and March in southeastern Brazil and March to July in Costa Rica. It builds a half-cup nest on the vertical interior wall of a chimney or similar structure; it may be rebuilt and reused. Both parents incubate the clutch of two to four eggs at night. The incubation period and time to fledging are not known.

Vocalization

The principal vocalizations of the grey-rumped swift's nominate subspecies are "a bright repeated short 'tsip'" and a "series of 3–4 slightly downslurred burry drawn-out notes 'trrreeew-trrreeew-trrreeew'." The other subspecies' vocalizations vary but are similar to them.

Status

The IUCN has assessed the grey-rumped swift as being of Least Concern. It has an extremely large range and an estimated population of 50 million mature individuals. The population is believed to be slowly decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. It is " e of the commonest ''Chaetura'' swifts throughout tsrange", is abundant in some areas, and occurs in several protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1261427 grey-rumped swift grey-rumped swift Birds of Nicaragua Birds of Costa Rica Birds of Colombia Birds of Ecuador Birds of Venezuela Birds of the Amazon Basin Birds of the Peruvian Amazon Birds of the Bolivian Amazon Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Birds of the Atlantic Forest grey-rumped swift grey-rumped swift