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Photo: Alexis Lours · CC BY 4.0 · source ↗
Common Swift
Europese Windswael · Apus apus
A sooty-brown swift that breeds in Europe and pours into southern African skies for the summer. It is among the most aerial of all birds, feeding, sleeping and even mating on the wing, and almost never landing. It hunts flying insects high overhead and leaves before winter.
Log your Common Swift sighting — free →How to identify it
All-dark swift with a slightly forked tail; very like African Black Swift but with a paler throat.
Listen for its call
A high, screaming "srrreee" as flocks race past overhead.
Where to see it in Kruger
Overhead anywhere in summer, often in mixed feeding flocks of swifts.
Did you know
It can stay in the air for months at a time, even sleeping while flying.
Often confused with
See it? Log it — free.
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