Weight development monitoring
Anyone raising a young swift must check the weight of the growing patient daily. A diet, letter, or precision scale is suitable for this.
A swift weighs 2-3 grams at hatching and reaches a weight of 45-55 grams during the 40-45 day nestling period; short-term peak values of over 60 grams are even known. Towards the end of the nestling period, the weight drops by a few grams. The young swifts increasingly refuse food vehemently, "slim down", and convert fat into muscle mass. Through extensive "push-ups", they instinctively determine their ideal weight from the ratio of their wingspan to body weight (WRIGHT et al., 2006). So you should by no means become nervous or resort to "coercive measures" if the almost fledged young swift suddenly does not want to eat properly! The "slimming down" has its purpose: A heavyweight of 48-50 grams would have considerable difficulties getting airborne at takeoff.
According to more recent studies, young swifts also display this behavior towards their parents. It is not the adult birds that reduce the feeding of their well-nourished offspring towards the end of the nestling period, as was previously believed, but rather the young reject the parental feeding attempts, which in turn causes the adult birds to bring food to the nest less frequently. The fledged young swifts only leave their nesting cavity when they have reached the right ratio between wingspan and body weight. These behaviors of course only work in good weather conditions and with sufficient food supply!
Of course, a hand-raised swift should preferably not weigh less than 40 grams on the day of release so that it has sufficient reserves. It is important that you pay attention to continuous weight development of the swift and regularly check its nutritional status by feeling the breastbone.
Note: There are extremely small and extremely large swifts. Therefore, all weight specifications are only relative. A very delicate small swift can be well-nourished at 35 grams and have a well-rounded breast, while a very large bird at the same weight would already be on the verge of starvation and would need infusions.
When is the young swift ready to fly?
Besides weight, certain signs indicate with fair certainty that a young swift is ready to fly out:
- It behaves very restlessly and trains its flight muscles particularly hard. It is feverishly active especially in the evening hours.
- It regurgitates food more and more often and finally refuses to eat altogether.
- Through intensive "push-ups", it determines its ideal flight weight from the ratio between its body weight and the length of its wings.
- It preens feverishly and repeatedly pulls the long flight feathers through its beak.
- The most reliable characteristic is the plumage: Look at the underside of the wings and blow the covert feathers aside: You will clearly see the gray-white feather quills, reminiscent of small tubes, from which the flight feathers grow. Only when none of these quills are visible anymore are the feathers fully developed.
So if your swift shows these behaviors and its plumage is fully grown, it is ready to leave the nursery. In the wild, it would now sit for hours, for days at the flight hole, looking outside, finally poking its head out more and more often, and suddenly daring the leap into nothingness. In wild swifts, this usually happens immediately after sunset.
Here, however, we should exceptionally deviate from nature and schedule the start of the patient in daylight. Because the still inexperienced swift friend can easily misjudge the right moment, or the bird is for some reason not yet ready to fly out or not able to because perhaps a disability, injury, or other handicap was not previously recognizable. If there is then a crash landing, you will be more likely to find a crashed swift in daylight than at dusk.
For the same reason, a release should not take place over high vegetation, e.g., near a grain field or the like, and it is always advisable to position two or three helpers in clear places nearby in order to keep the maiden flight of the foster child in view as well as possible.
How does the release work?
Unfortunately, the false information still circulates that you should throw a swift high into the air to make it fly. Never! How often has throwing swifts that were not yet fledged, that were injured, weakened, or in shock, had the worst consequences! Although many a young swift is so restless at takeoff that when jumping off the hand, it initially falls "on its nose" out of sheer excitement; then its human friend may give a little push on the second try. However, such attempts must be stopped immediately if the bird also crashes on the second and perhaps third attempt, because then there is an urgent suspicion of a previously unrecognized disability (perhaps a broken bone or a torn tendon), which must be clarified by X-ray.
Normally, both adult and young swifts take off by letting themselves fall from an elevated position and then immediately ascending high into the airspace. Contrary to popular belief, however, any fully grown, healthy, and strong swift can also take off from the ground, provided it has a flat, bare "runway" of 2-3 m in length in front of it.
What do I need to consider when launching my patient?
Choose a clear area, e.g., a traffic-calmed, clearly visible side street or a small sports ground. Very large open areas such as fields or meadows are not necessarily advisable, as the swifts takeoff here would be very unprotected and isolated and it could become easy prey for a predator (e.g., falcon or sparrowhawk). In a street canyon, on the other hand, a launching swift initially has cover from the rows of houses, just as when flying out of its natural nesting cavity.
Pay particular attention to falcons! Although the bird-hunting hobbies and peregrine falcons are rare, the frequently occurring kestrels, which are increasing strongly especially in urban settlements and increasingly hunt birds, can bring the initially still uncertain maiden flight of a young swift to a bloody end.
If a falcon is sitting or circling near the launch site, you must postpone the launch of your patient or look for another location. If, on the other hand, the attack of the bird of prey comes "out of the blue" without you having seen it beforehand, the hunter can sometimes be irritated and driven away by loud shouting and clapping. Only when the swift has completed the first few hundred meters of flight, gaining confidence and altitude, does an attacking kestrel have hardly any chance of striking the agile high-performance flier.
Position yourself at the launch site you have chosen facing into the wind so that your patient has enough lift when jumping off. Place the swift in the flat hand, raise it high above your head - and be patient! Consider what a significant event in its life is now ahead of it! Therefore, do not push or shove it if it hesitates for a while. If it even crawls backwards anxiously or puffs up as if cold, abort the launch and try again in a day or two - because then it is simply not yet ready to leave "Hotel Mom".
Usually, however, a young swift will not keep you waiting long. Curious, excited, it will look around; in it the fear of the big leap fights with the irrepressible urge to fly. It is best if other swifts are circling and screaming in the sky above it: This only tempts it all the more. And suddenly it will begin to tremble violently, arch itself through, pass droppings once more - and abruptly jump from your hand...
It is a breathtaking moment and causes heart palpitations to witness how the young bird first sags a little uncertainly, but then rises with powerful wing beats, gains altitude at astonishing speed, and immediately begins with whirling flight games and insect catching as if it had done nothing else all its life. And one must also be amazed again and again how quickly a troop of other swifts is on the scene and surrounds the newcomer to include it in the racing flights. Sometimes they seem to positively crowd it, as if it first had to prove that it is a "real" swift!
Complications at launch
Of course, a patient often also ensures that its first flight becomes a nerve-wracking thriller for you, for example by unexpectedly veering away from the launch path lying free before it, shooting straight between houses, trees, or head-on towards some obstacles. Usually this most agile aerial artist among birds manages to turn away in time and climb to altitude, but you will not always have complete certainty about this. Anyone who has ever raised and released swifts knows the anxious hours and days of searching in impenetrable undergrowth, richly planted gardens, and endless fields! And it is hard to believe how quickly you can lose sight of the bird against a dark background, e.g., trees.
And of course - it can also go wrong. Launching swifts have crashed into house walls for inexplicable reasons, collided with high-voltage lines, flown into cars or glass panes, been struck by falcons, or - worst of all! - gone down somewhere and never been found again. This is probably the most terrible end that the care of a swift can find.
Will the hand-raised swift cope in freedom?
Yes, it will! Even the young swifts that were raised by their own parents and leave the nesting site for the first time are immediately on their own and have no more contact with mother and father. They can fly, hunt, know the way to their winter quarters, and instinctively know what to watch out for and how to behave. There is no guidance phase for them as with songbirds, and so hand-raised birds do not need to be released into the wild like, say, a human-raised tit or blackbird.
So when your swift rises into the skies towards its natural destiny, you can safely leave it to itself and need not worry about its welfare. Everything it needs to survive is innate; now it needs no more help and will remain almost continuously in the air for two or three years. Next year, if nothing happens to it, it will return to the area from which it first flew out, perhaps already looking for a nesting site here.
Late release? Transportation? Overwintering?
It often happens - especially with patients from late broods - that the other swifts have already left the area. If your patient does not fledge until September or even later, you can still let it fly without hesitation, but you must choose a warm, sunny day. It is absolutely advisable to listen to the weather reports for Germany, France, Spain, and the Alpine region so that you do not unknowingly release the swift into a bad weather front further south.
It is considered proven that the swifts of Western European populations migrate to Africa via southern Germany, France, Spain, and Gibraltar, but there is also a southeastern migration route that leads over the Alps. The route to the winter quarters is innate to the young swift, and since occasional migrating swifts from Nordic latitudes have been observed even in October and November, it may well be that it finds company on the way. It is not advisable to let young swifts fly later than the first or second week of October at the latest, or even if generally and persistently bad, i.e., cold, rainy, stormy weather prevails already in September. Then you must look for a way to transport the latecomer south and into better weather, by car, train, or plane!
However, wanting to overwinter a healthy, flight-capable swift out of misunderstood care, just because you think there is no other option, would probably mean its certain death. Its flight muscles would atrophy, it would become physically and mentally ill and waste away, alone in captivity, without its conspecifics. Also, the anatomy of an animal created for the permanent stress of non-stop flight is not designed for prolonged lying or hanging in a box. Feather damage, bedsores, breathing problems, and much more would be the consequences, not least a rapidly increasing susceptibility to infections with bacteria and fungi, as the immune defense of a swift in captivity drops rapidly.
If you have a late patient, definitely contact the DGfM. The Swift Clinic is set up for long-term patients, has much experience dealing with them, and veterinary care is guaranteed. In addition, transportations south take place regularly in autumn and winter, which can still enable a swift that has missed the connection to take off into sunshine and freedom.
When there is no more rescue...
The swift is a creature of the sky, and anyone who has ever observed these birds, the free, wild flights of the adults and the obvious longing of the young swifts for the vastness of the airspace, knows that there can be no other life for them. Wanting to keep a swift in captivity would be - quite apart from the fact that it is strictly forbidden and punishable according to the Nature Conservation Act - irresponsible cruelty to animals. It is mentioned here, however, because it happens again and again that a swift is unable to fly for one of the previously mentioned reasons. In such cases, especially by animal lovers who have raised, cared for, and grown to love such a bird with great effort and dedication, the question is often asked whether the otherwise healthy animal could at least live in captivity.
The answer must be: NO!
Recall the way of life of a swift. It would be unspeakably cruel to deny this permanent flier the immeasurable freedom and the flights with its conspecifics. Such an existence, locked up and force-fed, is worse than death for a swift, and if you have observed your patients behavior, you will know why.
Distance yourself from a misunderstood, sentimental "animal love" that in truth just does not want to part from its object and is pure egoism! Because the bird feels nothing of the pity you feel for it and only knows that it must suffer. And so a swift, whether adult or young, that can no longer lead its species-appropriate life in freedom should be anesthetized by the veterinarian and then painlessly euthanized. In such a case, this is the greatest mercy and the only thing you can still do for your feathered friend, because - life is not always the best. Not when it is no longer a life for this very special bird. Of course, it is not easy - especially when you have taken care of and grown fond of an animal for a long time and devotedly. But precisely because of this:
When making this decision, do not think of yourself, but of "your" swift, and do not subject it to the torment of lonely and undignified vegetation in captivity!
