View allAll Photos Tagged SWIFT
If you wait long enough they open their mouths. Which is strange considering their screaming when they buzz you.
Every year at this time the Vaux Swifts gather at sunset to roost in select Portland area chimneys. This one is just two blocks from our house.
06 September 2022.
iPhone video.
Alpine swift (Apus melba)
Meaning behind the name:
Apus = Latin, and derived from Greek meaning "without foot" and refers to their appearance of not having any feet.
melba = Unknown origin and is thought to be of Chinese in 1758. One suggestion is the word could then be a shortened form of the Latin "melanoalba" or "melalba" which means "black, white" which is the colour appearance of this swift.
Did you know?
Swifts are unique with their legs and feet, since they are only designed to cling and not perch. They spend almost their entire lives on the wing, only landing to rear up their young.
The English name "Swift" is just one of several names that was given to it. Others include "House swift" (1668), Black Martin or swift (1678). The Alpine swift wasn't well known here at the time, and the "Common swift" was thought to be a bad omen and surrounded by superstition. However, Swift became common usage for this species from 1768. Swifts, Martins and Swallows had all shared names prior due to their simular resemblance to each other.
Swift Current Falls gets its name for a good reason. This is not a place you want to fall into the water. It would be more than a bumpy ride down. The locations is one of the easiest places to get to however most don’t see it from this angle because they look at it from the bridge above. While it looks good from above I really like the walk down to look back up at the falls and the Mountain in the background. I missed sunrise at this location because I was shooting wildlife but I would love to come back and shoot it during sunrise.
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In Montell, Uvalde County. I'm not completely sure about the species ID, but think the swift setwing fits.
08-08-15_MG_5965 Was a nice surprise to find this one perched their numbers have been dropping rather fast this year for some reason.
A couple of record shots of Swift from 2013. Have tried hard over the years to get shots of these but they are so fast & difficult. They will be back soon but I do not see them in my part of the village, much too built up now
The swift fox is a small light orange-tan fox around the size of a domestic cat found in the western grasslands of North America, such as Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It also lives in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada. It became nearly extinct in the 1930s as a result of predator control programs, but was successfully reintroduced later. Currently, the conservation status of the species is considered by the IUCN as endangered.
While tracking 1 I hit the trigger just as a second popped into view. Luck more than judgement here.
Taken in Princeton, BC in May 2016.
The Vaux's Swift is a hard bird to photograph. I was happy to see some flying very low down with hundreds of swallows in Princeton last month, the best I have ever seen this species.
Swift Creek is a tributary of the Suwannee River near White Springs, FL. Its namesake is apparent to anyone who visits it, as its water frequently races down a deep (for Florida) limestone gorge into the Suwannee. I had visited this one less than a month before this shot when the water was much higher and the light was poor. I anticipated being able to photograph this one in a long exposure racing through its channel. What I didn't anticipate were the rapids that were revealed at low water in this creek, numerous ones in the last 100 yards before its confluence with the Suwannee and even more upstream. I even found a small spring flowing through the karst, pictures of which I will share later.
With overcast skies, the grass being cut around Wilstone res banks and a storm approaching I hadn't expected much. I had planned to photograph bees on the banks but the mowers put paid to that. What it did do was displace millions of insects which in turn bought in the Swift. The skies were alive with thousands of them all enjoying their feed. Despite the high numbers, it seems some individuals favoured particular patches of the sky. These two individuals, one with a little damage on its underside and the other with a scruffy wing I repeatedly managed to get shots of.
In my efforts to get a at least a vaguely crisp panning shot of a swift over the last few weeks, I had collected quite a few shots of them doing their amazing acrobatics as they zoomed across the sky to catch an insect meal. They were inevitably photographed at varying heights and distances, so many were just too small in frame to carry as a photographic composition. I thought I might montage lots of the better shots together on a single frame, so here they all are, showing off all their twists and turns. If you peer closely, you can see one bird was caught by the shutter just as he/she opened their beak to swallow an insect.
Taken in the same meadow where the House Martins were hawking for insects at low level - much higher up was a Swift.
Since each image was small, I thought I'd try a composite.
One of my last shots from the Narrows in Zion National Park. The crowds really thin out the deeper you go into the Narrows. I think this was about 3 miles in from the start of the Narrows. Finding compositions in the Narrows is a lot fun. This shot is one of my favorite water flow shots I've taken. Nice water curves wrapping around the rocks really makes this my favorite image from the Narrows. We didn't finish the the Narrows until 6 or 7pm, so the light was a lot darker and cooler than some of my earlier shots.
Narrows
Zion National Park, Utah
I just posted my summer timelapse project online. youtu.be/AIdznH2bYwA
The number of Swifts in the evening sky has dropped significantly over the last couple of nights so I guess that some of the Swifts have started to head south on their migration back to Africa. Unfortuately we didn't get the golden sunset when the Swift numbers were higher.
Plying a traditional hand-crafted Arabic-styled Mashua dhow under a stiff coastal trade wind in the Lamu Archipelago off Kenya's northern Swahili Coast.
The seasonal trade winds have been instrumental in the evolution of Swahili culture and commerce since the ancient island town of Lamu was first established in the 14th Century as a strategic Omani marine outpost and settlement on the classic coastal trade route between Zanzibar and the Arabic world further to the north.
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Dewlish, Dorset.
The Swift is a medium-sized aerial bird, which is a superb flyer. Sleeping, eating, bathing and even mating on the wing (while flying), Swifts rarely touch the ground. They are also the fastest birds in level flight, with an impressive top speed of 69mph. Swifts are plain sooty brown, with a white throat, but in flight against the sky they appear black. They have curved wings and a forked tail. Swifts are summer visitors, breeding across the UK, but are most numerous in the south and east. Spending their winters in Africa, Swifts migrate 3,400 miles twice a year, stopping off to refuel in places like Portugal and France along the way. (RSPB).
My thanks to anyone who clicks or comments on this photo. It is much appreciated.
Pelopidas lyelli feeding on Lantana montevidensis in the yard as an addition to the Pandemic Pics album.
During Swift Response 2023 exercise I was able to attend some practices at Bardenas Reales shooting range in Spain by USAF A10s. No real fire (not even BRRRRRRRT, because of the ammunition) but great flying demos, some of them for the media. A great day!
The cargo ship INDUSTRIAL SWIFT alongside in the port of Saint-Nazaire to load MAN motors. In the bottom right the liner MSC BELLISSIMA.
Le cargo INDUSTRIAL SWIFT à quai dans le port de Saint-Nazaire pour charger des moteurs MAN. Dans le fond à droite le paquebot MSC BELLISSIMA.
IMO: 9741152
MMSI: 636017393
Call Sign: D5KR7
Flag: Liberia [LR]
AIS Vessel Type: Cargo
Gross Tonnage: 11619
Deadweight: 12337 t
Length Overall x Breadth Extreme: 147m × 23m
Year Built: 2017
Status: Active