Common Swift

The common swift is 16–17 cm long with a wingspan of 38–40 cm and is entirely blackish brown apart from a small white or pale grey patch on the chin that is not visible from a distance. It has a short forked tail and very long swept-back, sickle-shaped wings, longer than its body, so that its silhouette in the air resembles an anchor. Its nearest relatives are the New World hummingbirds and the treeswifts of Southeast Asia. Some individuals go ten months without landing (Wikipedia, general species account).

Common swifts do not breed on the Indian subcontinent. They are migratory, and SoIB 2023 lists the species as a winter migrant and localised summer migrant, an invertebrate feeder of non-specialised habitat, without a priority category. The call is a loud scream in two pitches, the higher from the female, and in summer evenings 10–20 birds form screaming parties around their nesting area (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).