Swift is a small bird that can fly for many hours with its long, strong wings. Swifts capture their insect food while flying. They almost always return at dusk to the cave, chimney, cliff, or hollow tree where they live in flocks. A chimney swift may fly 135,000 miles (217,000 kilometers) a year. Swifts build nests made of sticks that they cement together with their saliva. Some of these nests are almost entirely made up of saliva. In Asia, some people eat the nests of certain species of swifts.
More than 75 different kinds of swifts live in various parts of the world. They are sooty-brown or greenish-black. Some swifts have white throats or rumps. Their song, continually repeated, is little more than short, indistinct sounds. The chimney swift of eastern North America almost always builds its nest in chimneys. Vaux’s swifts of western North America and chimney swifts may roost by the thousands in large chimneys while migrating. They perform spectacular maneuvers in the air as they fly into the chimneys for the night.
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