Foreign guests under our roofs
The breathtaking aerial games and lively, shrill screams of Common Swifts (Apus apus) hunting high in the skies are a familiar sight over our cities in late spring and summer. Swifts are often mistaken for swallows, to which they are not related, however.
These fascinating creatures with their enigmatic dark eyes and narrow, sickle-shaped wings spend almost their entire lives in flight and even sleep on the wing. Of all the bird species on Earth, the Common Swift is the one that is most extremely adapted to the airspace, and with the utmost perfection.
These restless master fliers spend the greater part of the year in continuous flight over the African continent. They do not head for fixed winter quarters as other migratory birds do, but always follow the most favourable weather and feeding conditions. From mid-April to mid-May they return to Europe to breed here and raise their young, before most of them set off on the great journey again in early August. The young birds, which are completely independent from the moment they leave the nest, find their way entirely on their own and migrate independently of their parents.