Apus pallidus brehmorum MHNT ZOO 2011 11 189 HdB Malaga

The pallid swift (''Apus pallidus'') is a

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 * SWIF ...

(order Apodiformes). Swifts have very short legs which they use only for clinging to vertical surfaces. The genus name ''Apus'' is

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for a swift, thought by the ancients to be a type of

swallow The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...

with no feet (from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

α, ''a'', "without", and πούς, ''pous'', "foot"), and ''pallidus'' is Latin for "pale". Like other swifts they never settle voluntarily on the ground, but spend most of their lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in their beaks. They drink on the wing.

Taxonomy

The pallid swift was first described by English naturalist

George Ernest Shelley Captain George Ernest Shelley (15 May 1840 – 29 November 1910) was an England, English geologist and ornithologist. He was a nephew of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley was educated at the Lycée de Versailles and served a few years in ...

in 1870.

Description

This long species is very similar to the

common swift The common swift (''Apus apus'') is a medium-sized bird, superficially similar to the barn swallow or Common house martin, house martin but somewhat larger, though not stemming from those passerine species, being in the order Apodiformes. The re ...

, and separation is only possible with good views. Like its relative, it has a short forked tail and very long swept-back wings that resemble a crescent or a

boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...

. It is entirely dark except for a large white throat patch which is frequently visible from a distance. It is chunkier and browner than common swift, and the slightly paler flight feathers, underparts and rump give more contrast than that species. It also has a scalier looking belly and subtly different flight action. The call is a loud dry scream similar to that of its relative, though possibly more disyllabic.

Distribution and habitat

Pallid swifts breed on cliffs and eaves around the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and on the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

and

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

, laying two eggs. They are rare north of their breeding areas, although they are likely to be under-recorded due to identification problems. Because of its more southerly range, pallid swift arrives earlier and leaves later than the closely related common swift, so particularly early or late swifts north of the normal range should be carefully observed.

Migration

Like swallows, they are migratory, wintering in southern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

or southeast

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Pallid swifts that breed in

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

have been tracked using GPS technology, and has shown them to have multiple African wintering grounds south of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

at specific times of the year. One bird, tracked over two consecutive winters, showed remarkable fidelity to the areas visited in Africa between years. The study also supports previous findings of an airborne existence in swifts outside the breeding season, with two pallid swifts giving no indication of coming to land.

References

External links

Flicker Field Guide Birds of the World
Photographs
Ageing and sexing (PDF; 2.6 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
{{Taxonbar, from=Q165923

pallid swift The pallid swift (''Apus pallidus'') is a Swift (bird), swift (order Apodiformes). Swifts have very short legs which they use only for clinging to vertical surfaces. The genus name ''Apus'' is Latin for a swift, thought by the ancients to be a ty ...

Birds of Europe Birds of North Africa Birds of the Middle East Wintering birds of Africa