You will get to know the swift as a lovable, trusting, and hardly fearful guest that takes a lively interest in everything happening around it. One soulful look from huge round eyes, and this ravishingly beautiful creature has already conquered your heart and activated all your maternal, paternal, and other protective instincts. This helpless little bird is so tame, so trusting - it already loves you... - Misinterpreted!! Because swifts, unless they have experienced harm from humans or are in shock (e.g., accident or cat victims), naturally react mostly fearlessly. There is no question of being tame or trusting. Since this airborne bird species has never known humans as enemies (only through modern weapons has the swift also become a target for bird killers in the Mediterranean region), it lacks the shyness we know from other wild birds, which could lead to treating the patient like a pet.
Do not do that! Swifts are not pets and should mainly be left to themselves in their container except for feeding and cleaning. If there are two or even more of them, the role of humans is reduced to the necessary care measures anyway. If a swift is cared for alone, there may be a bit more contact, provided this is welcome to the bird. Under no circumstances, however, may one play around with swifts, carry them around, show them to all friends and acquaintances, or otherwise disturb and worry them in any way. Constant touching and stroking is to be avoided because the fat from human hands gets onto the plumage. The only company that swifts really need is that of conspecifics!
Behavior of young swifts
Even freshly hatched swifts flap their wings vigorously when touched or at noises. They grip strongly with their feet and strive upward on an inclined plane. At the age of 3-4 days, they can already climb up along a humans fingers. At 10-12 days, they climb around; at 2-3 weeks, they already hop around fluttering, resting every few seconds and falling into "deep sleep", which however never lasts long. Dozing and comfortably hanging around is something nestlings like at almost any age - as if they knew there will never be any "relaxing" for them later in the air!
At about 4 weeks of age, they begin "flight gymnastics": They press themselves vertically up against the wall with spread tail. They raise their body so high with outstretched wings that even their feet lift off, initially only briefly, later often 10 seconds and longer. They beat their wings and flutter vigorously, almost feverishly and obsessively. These exercises are necessary as the young bird must strengthen its flight muscles. There should always be enough room in its container for training.
Otherwise, the young swift shows little urge to move, at most crawling around a few steps now and then, appearing very clumsy - the later so agile high-performance flier. It spends most of its time intensively and persistently grooming its plumage.
Young swifts behave compatibly with each other. If you have several swifts to raise, you should house them in twos or threes as in nature if possible, but experience shows that you can also put six or eight together in a (sufficiently large) box. Usually they form small groups and cuddle together; almost fully grown birds like to separate, and very small ones are often taken into the middle by older ones. The animals groom each other, rest and sleep snuggled closely together, and seem to communicate in their very own language. They make a soft whirring or singing as a persistent contact sound that sounds like "pijj-pijj", changes to a rolling or chirping "zjirr" when they are hungry, and can be increased to a shrill "zjierrr-zjierrr" when displeased or afraid. Young swifts show particular activity in the morning hours and especially in the evening at dusk. Almost fledged birds, who seem to sense how close the end of the cramped nestling time is, then train with almost dogged endurance.
Scratching
Swifts react startled to a hand approaching from above and touches to their head and back. However, they very much enjoy it when you gently scratch their throat with your fingernail after feeding. Feeding time is also time for contact and soft gentle words. They then lay their head back comfortably and close their eyes. Some are regular "cuddlers", turning their head in all conceivable directions so that you can reach every little spot to scratch. One almost thinks they would start purring like a cat. Others are rather indifferent or even dismissive towards the human carer. If the swift ducks away and avoids your touch, it is not in the mood for petting. Leave it in peace. Swifts are great individuals; no two are alike!
Claws
If you are inexperienced with swifts, your patient may cause you certain difficulties with its claws. The short, extraordinarily strong swift feet are designed for climbing and clinging to steep walls and rock. 4 toes are arranged half sideways and forward like the fingers of a spread hand. Sitting on branches is virtually impossible. Especially during feeding, if it tries to crawl backwards, your patient may get caught in clothes, towels, upholstered furniture, and it is not easy to release its extremely powerful pincer grip, which can even be painful. Never use force, but release claw by claw with sensitivity!
"Dry exercises"
Unlike young songbird patients, who need an aviary stage at the end of rearing for release into the wild, the young swift spends its entire nestling time in the nesting cavity or, now with you, in its container. As long as it is not yet fledged, it will spend most of its time lying sluggishly dozing and grooming in its nest, waiting for the next feeding. Occasionally it does "dry exercises": pushing itself up and fluttering intensely with its wings. As a nestling, it will not jump out and fly through the room. Only after fledging, when it wants to fly out, can it become feverishly restless from one moment to the next and make escape attempts: Then for the healthy swift with intact, fully developed plumage, the time for release has come. It does not need to learn food intake; it instinctively knows how to catch insects. It also knows how to fly! You must not and may not do flight exercises with it! It would become frightened and perhaps even injured. The young swift takes care of the necessary muscle training itself with its "dry exercises", and from the moment it flies out, it is completely independent, catches its food, and flies perfectly. A bond with the parents never exists again.
Attention - Plumage!
You must treat its plumage with particular care - this cannot be emphasized often enough! - because its life depends on it. Broken or bent flight feathers can mean a death sentence for a swift! As already described, it happens that due to incorrect feeding or other, still unknown causes, a young swift sheds one or more flight feathers. Usually these feathers grow back, but one must be clear that it takes about five to six weeks until a flight feather has reached its full length, and that this long waiting time asks a lot of both the swift and yourself. The bird must absolutely be trained several times daily once the normal nestling time of 6 to 7 weeks is exceeded. Not every swift endures this strain; some give up in the middle, refuse food, become apathetic or sick.
If your swift develops a feathering problem, definitely contact the Swift Clinic of the DGfM in Frankfurt/Main. There is certainly a way to transfer the bird there, where it can recover from its feather damage in the company of conspecifics and under veterinary care.
The same applies to any kind of feather damage that cannot be remedied in the foreseeable future. The young swift does not molt the flight feathers of its wings until the second winter of its life. The plumage with which you release it into freedom must carry it for at least the next two years, almost continuously in the air! Consider this and, in the interest of the bird, do not risk any experiments: A young swift with incomplete flight feathers or other, perhaps nutrition-related massive damage, especially to the flight feathers, can never meet the demands of permanent flight and is, if the defects cannot be remedied, a candidate for death.