{"id":144,"date":"2013-07-17T17:14:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T17:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sgtworld.com\/birding\/?p=144"},"modified":"2015-10-30T15:53:10","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:53:10","slug":"speeding-swifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/07\/17\/speeding-swifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Speeding Swifts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whilst cycling along Drake&#8217;s Trail a couple of weekends ago, I decided to take a quick break at the viaduct at Bickleigh. \u00a0Whilst I was having a drink and a snack, I heard lots of bird noises coming from beside the viaduct so I had a look over the edge and saw lots of birds with long wings bombing around. \u00a0I new instantly that these were Swifts as they were a different colouring to Swallows with a shorter tail and larger wings.<\/p>\n<p>There were at least 10 of them flying about under the viaduct and over it, and sometimes not very far from my head! \u00a0I had never seen a Swift properly before so I spent a good ten minutes watching them play in the early morning sunshine.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the viaduct at Bickleigh where you should be able to see the many Swift that must nest very close by.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?q=50.445939,-4.078259&amp;num=1&amp;t=h&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;z=14&amp;output=embed\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<small><a style=\"color: #0000ff; text-align: left;\" href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.co.uk\/maps?q=50.445939,-4.078259&amp;num=1&amp;t=h&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;z=14&amp;source=embed\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>These birds are medium sized and a browny colour, even though they look black when they are flying through the air. \u00a0Swifts have a short forked tail and are often seen in flocks. \u00a0They sleep on the wing and are visitors to the UK during the Summer months. \u00a0They are seen speeding around rooftops and houses, especially in the early hours of the morning or at dusk, catching flying insects or spiders. \u00a0Their latin name is Apus Apus and they have a distinctive screaming call that makes them sound very excited! \u00a0They are a joy to watch!<\/p>\n<p>Here is an image of a Swift from the RSPB website.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_146\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-146\" style=\"width: 530px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/swift.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-146 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/swift.jpg\" alt=\"Swift\" width=\"530\" height=\"298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/swift.jpg 530w, https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/swift-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/swift-500x281.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-146\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Swift<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whilst cycling along Drake&#8217;s Trail a couple of weekends ago, I decided to take a quick break at the viaduct at Bickleigh. \u00a0Whilst I was having a drink and a snack, I heard lots of bird noises coming from beside the viaduct so I had a look over the edge and saw lots of birds <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/07\/17\/speeding-swifts\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;Continue reading<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[25,121],"tags":[118,119,120,26,117],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}