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The twinkling, erratic flight of Chimney Swifts across the late afternoon sky is as much a part of a Virginia summer as the droning of Cicadas at high noon and the rolicking song of a robin at dawn. Often a pair of swifts, or even three, will fly together, wing tips nearly touching as they stitch a capricious pattern across the sky in their constant search for flying insects.
So rapid are the wingbeats of this bird that until recently it was thought they beat their wings alternately. In my endless minutes of swift-watching I once persuaded myself that I saw one hold a wing stiff while flapping the other as the bird executed a quick turn. Slow motion photography proved they dp beat their wings together as other birds.
Swifts are soot-colored, five-inch birds with a wingspan of 12 1/2 inches. The narrow, swept-back wings are perfect adaptations for rapid flight and quick turns as swifts, with open mouths, pursue insects through the upper air. . , Swifts are swallows with whom they share the open sky. In placing the world-wide family of swifts in Phylogenetic Order — the order in which they evolved — they were placed between Goatsuckers (Whip-poor-wills and Nighthawks) and Hummingbirds, which also have very rapid wingbeats and superb maneuverability.
So perfectly adapted for aerial life are swifts that they court while flying, drink water by scooping up a bill-full in full
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