Well, Jim:
It took some time, but I looked up your question, because I didn't know the answer. I don't know if anyone else knows the answer, perhaps others have responded to you back-channel. I found that the article is about European swift species, and that there is documentation of one European species that has been documented to sleep on the wing, seen by pilots in aircraft. For the rest of the species, including all North American species, roosting is the typical way of sleeping and spending the night. They roost communally, in small groups, even while the one pair of birds per roost site is nesting. Later, after nesting is over, they congregate and use larger roosting sites with many hundreds of birds each night, especially on migration. They are a diurnal migrant. The article suggests that swifts change their wing shape and angle according to the type of flight they are engaged in, and that was corroborated in these accounts as well. Does that answer your question? I used John K Terres' Encyclopedia of North American Birds, and Birds of North America online for resources. Thanks for asking a question that required study to answer, I like those kinds! Holly Peirson Columbus, Anoka Co. _____ From: mou-net-bounces at moumn.org [mailto:mou-net-boun...@moumn.org] On Behalf Of Jim Ryan Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:51 PM To: Gail Wieberdink Cc: MOU-net List Serv; MNBird List Serv Subject: Re: [mou] interesting article Great article Gail, Thanks for sharing it. There is a mention of the fact that swifts sleep while they are flying...Does anyone know do that all the time and if they also roost? I distinctly remember one dusk on the Rum river by the old hospital smokestack (across from the Anoka County Fairgrounds) seeing hundreds of swifts funneling thier way INTO the stack as darkness overtook the day... I assumed they were roosting for the evening and just enjoyed the spectacle...This was several years ago in late August. Any thoughts?? Jim on St. Paul's Westside On 4/29/07, Gail Wieberdink <wieber64 at comcast.net> wrote: An interesting article about swifts and airplane design. http://tinyurl.com/yvga4e Gail -- Sincerely, Jim Ryan 651-308-0234 cell "A man who dares to waste an hour of time has not discovered the value of life." - Charles Darwin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070510/1bb10735/attachment-0001.html