The white-chested swift (''Cypseloides lemosi'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in subfamily

Cypseloidinae The Cypseloidinae are a subfamily of swifts and contain the following species: * Genus ''Cypseloides'' :* Spot-fronted swift (''Cypseloides cherriei'') :* White-chinned swift (''Cypseloides cryptus'') :* Sooty swift (''Cypseloides fumigatus'') ...

of the swift family

Apodidae The Apodidae, or swifts, form a family 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 along with hummingbirds. The treeswifts ar ...

.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

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, and possibly Brazil.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 white-chested swift,

American black swift The American black swift, or more simply black swift (''Cypseloides niger''), is a species of bird that is found from northern British Columbia in Canada through the United States and Mexico to Costa Rica and Brazil. They are also found in the Ca ...

(''Cypseloides niger''), Rothschild's swift (''C. rothschildi''), and sooty swift (''C. fumigatus'') form a

superspecies In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

.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 The white-chested swift is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

Description

The white-chested swift is long and weighs about . Both sexes have a notched tail, with the male's notch being deeper. The sexes have the same

plumage Plumage () 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, there can b ...

. Adults have sooty blackish upperparts with a faint green gloss on the crown and back and bluish wings and tail. They are black between the bill and eye. They have a large white patch across the breast that is wider in the middle. The rest of their underparts are paler than the upperparts and slightly brownish. Immatures do not have the white breast band; they are dark slaty gray with white tips to most of the feathers of the underparts.Schulenberg, T. S. (2020). White-chested Swift (''Cypseloides lemosi''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.whcswi2.01 retrieved October 1, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The white-chested swift is known from widely scattered locations from Colombia's

Cauca River The Cauca River () is a river in Colombia that lies between the Occidental and Central cordilleras. From its headwaters in southwestern Colombia near the city of Popayán, it joins the Magdalena River near Magangué in Bolívar Department, an ...

valley south along the east slope of the Andes in Ecuador and into Peru as far south as Cuzco Department, and also east into

. An unconfirmed sight record in Brazil leads the South American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

to treat the species as hypothetical in that country. The white-chested swift has mostly been recorded over evergreen

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

and lowland forests, but also occurs at pastures and young

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

Behavior

Migration

Because breeding by white-chested swifts has not been documented at any site, it is not known if the species is resident or migratory at any of them.

Feeding

Like all swifts, the white-chested is an aerial

insectivore file:Common brown robberfly with prey.jpg, A Asilidae, robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivore, carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the Entomophagy ...

. Its diet is not known in detail but it has been observed feeding on small beetles. It usually forages in flocks, often with other swifts.

Breeding

Nothing is known about the white-chested swift's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

. It is assumed to nest on cliffs near water like others of its genus.

Vocalization

The white-chested swift's calls have been described as "a rapid, piping ''pi'pi'pi-pee pee'' and single ''tip'' and ''pee'' notes."

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed the white-chested swift as being of Least Concern, though it has a small known range and an unknown population size that is believed to be decreasing. No immediate threats have been identified. "The conservation status of White-chested Swift is difficult to assess adequately, however, until the breeding range of this species is ascertained."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1273346 white-chested swift Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes white-chested swift Taxonomy articles created by Polbot