Common and Alpine Swifts: Dubrovnik's most loyal visitors
The old town of Dubrovnik – Croatia’s prime tourist spot and Unesco’s World Heritage site. Every year this spectacular city attracts thousands of visitors from all around the world. Many come back again.
However, they are not the only ones. As if you happen to visit Dubrovnik sometime between the end of April and the end of October, you’re bound to meet Dubrovnik’s most loyal visitors— the Common and Alpine Swifts.
Indeed, these incredible birds come back to their birth town year after year, welcoming the first and seeing off the last tourists, as their stay coincides with the main tourist season in Dubrovnik.
They are not highly demanding visitors at all. They are not picky about the place to stay or about the menu in their sky restaurant.
Year after year they use holes in the ancient city walls as their nesting spots and feed on different insects, which they catch in flight.
Holes in the city walls used by swifts
The Common and Alpine swifts become especially playful in the late afternoon and at dusk when they return from their day-long search for food.
And while the city prepares for the nightlife and the lights turn on, they take on the sky stage just for themselves. And the musical begins.
If you look up, you’ll see hundreds of swifts racing through the skies above the city treating us to their distinctive singing repertoire. Some call it— and for a good reason—screaming parties.
And while no one can predict with certainty what this 2021 tourist season will turn out, we can say for sure that Dubrovnik’s most loyal guests will greet us once again with their playful presence.
In this world where “the only constant is change “ we’ll be happy to welcome them again.
Common Swift in flight, Shutterstock images
Some basic facts about the Common and Alpine Swift
Name: Common Swift (Apus Apus) and Alpine Swift (Tachymarptis melba) are migratory birds, which winter in southern Africa.
Description: They are considered middle-size birds. The Common Swifts are smaller than the Alpine swifts. They are mostly brown, while the Alpine swifts have a white belly and throat.
Except for the size and color differences, they have many traits in common. They both have very short legs, short forked tails, and crescent or boomerang-like wings. They are often mistaken for the barn swallows because of their resemblance to them.
Behavior: They use their short legs to cling to vertical surfaces and you’ll never see them on the ground.
They nest in holes in the cliffs, old walls, and under the roofs of old buildings.
Swifts are great fliers. They spend most of their lifetime airborne, except to breed.
Actually, the Common Swift holds the record for the longest nonstop flight—10 months. The Alpine Swift’s time airborne is shorter, but nonetheless incredible— 6 months without having to land.
The question that immediately comes to mind is how they rest and sleep. Some researchers believe they can shut one part of their brain, which rests, while the other half stays alert.
Did you know?
Not only that they come in helpful to the residents of the old town for getting rid of different insects, like flies and mosquitos, but thanks to swifts, they don’t need to use AccuWeather so often either.
Swifts are great meteorologists. When you see them flying low, it means that the change of weather or rain is about to come.