UKC

Beautiful things swooping around outside my office window. They are brown and they flutter a lot. Are they swifts or swallows? (I usually think of them as swiffows to be on the safe side).
L

In reply to BusyLizzie:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/22527420

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Sounds Like swifts, but i would keep calling them swiffows, it Sounds Nice.

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Butterflies?

In reply to BusyLizzie:

If they are brown then they will be sand martins.

In reply to BusyLizzie:
The BBC link will give you a significantly better chance of an accurate identification than anyone on here telling you what the bird is.
Especially as mockerkin seems to think swifts aren't brown (he/she is wrong)

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Swifts tend to feed at higher elevations than swallows and martins though it does depend on where the insects are obviously. They are also quite a bit bigger - martins and swallows are about the size of a sparrow.

In reply to interdit:


Good link, I've never been quite sure, but no excuse now!

In reply to jezb1:


Just remember if you come to the south of France or Spain climbing then in addition to those that visit the UK in the summer there are a variety of other swifts & martins that you might encounter and, if you are lucky, another swallow species.

Gets more complicated identifying them, especially when there are mixed species feeding.

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Depends how high your office is. Swifts are higher up as a rule and not terribly fluttery, and they shriek a lot. Swallows are blue black, quieter and rather more fluttery. But as someone said the link will do better than anything else.

jcm

Anyone had any success getting swifts to nest in artificial boxes? Will a main road put them off too much?

In reply to BusyLizzie:

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Thank you all so much, what a lovely bunch of replies! I am on the second floor of a Victorian building, highish (well, single pitch, but not ground floor); and they are brown all over. So I reckon they are swifts. But I shall carry on calling them swiffows to please Choss.

The phrase "if you come to the south of France or Spain climbing" has provoked me to wails of frustration almost loud enough to send the birds away... But thank you for the thought of sunny places

In reply to MG:


We have a colony of Swifts in our village which nest behind the facia below the guttering of a building next to the main road - they have been returning there for as long as I remember and seem oblivious to passing traffic

In reply to BusyLizzie:



Yep - all other potential candidates (Martins /Swallows) have some white markings.

In reply to BusyLizzie:

I grow up in a house ringed with Martins' nests, Swallows nested in the garage and the Swifts lived under the eaves of the church next door. It's pretty easy, swallows have swallow tails! The butterfly is called that for a reason. So long beautiful tail - swallow. Small with bright white tummy, house martins (but not this type youtube.com/watch?v=7_TMUJIWwyI& mind). Longer bodies and longer wing but short forked tail - swift. Swifts look black from the ground but are brown if you see them close up.

Not sure how to tell a sand martin from a house martin but it was never much of an issue in my part of the world!

In reply to TobyA:

Sand martins are dingier, basically.

jcm

In reply to TobyA:


We get both around Aboyne - the Sand Martin is a much smaller and browner beast than than the House Martin.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

OK, so I'll think "Blackpool" or "Margate" rather than "St Tropez" when I think of sand.

So, while the birdy types are watching - has anyone else seen a crane? I don't remember seeing one here in Finland until last year, but have already seen a number this year - including last weekend when climbing. They're huge! We also saw a pair of sea eagles high above us who seemed to be having a domestic, which was quite amusing, and some manic black woodpeckers.

When I first saw a crane in field of crops last summer I just glanced it (I was cycling at the time) and thought "what's a sheep doing there?" Then it put its head up - perhaps I need to see an ostrich because it looked to me that big!

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Interesting thing with swifts is: their main food is small spiders drifting on their threads (not flies etc. as I have thought).

And they need to nest high up so they can shuffle to the ledge edge, fall off, then flap away (wings too long and legs too short to start flying off a flat surface).

I'd love to see a hobby chase/catch a swift!

In reply to BusyLizzie:



Further reference comes from the degree of urbanisation - is this city centre, town or village?

The vote is correct for swifts - which are more urban than swallow and house martian.

In reply to LeeWood:


Every busy home needs a House Martian