Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky

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The first book to clearly study the complicated ecology of these birds. With chapters on exploitation, conservation, and birds'-nest cave management. Since the close of the 16th century AD, the edible nests of swiftlets have roused the perplexed curiosity of European travellers to South-east Asia, while at the same time providing one of the most important constituents of traditional Chinese medicine. For both cultures-western and eastern-this book clarifies the nature of these nests, the troglodytic lives of the birds that build them, and the exploitation of this highly valuable natural resource. Borneo is now the world's most important source of wild edible nests. These are built by three species of swiftlets. Regional differences in management of swiftlets in the various limestone caves of Borneo are reviewed. The authors also describe the emergence of swiftlet house-farming, which they see as inevitable. For many readers this section of the book will be of great interest, outlining the hope of an amalgam between a prosperous domestic industry and sustainable management of wild populations." Appreciate the power of Swift as a programming language for the development of mobile applications.

Swifts and Us by Sarah Gibson | Waterstones

Udemy: Udemy offers iOS 13 & Swift 5 - The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp, which is a highly-rated bestselling course with hours of video content walking through everything you need to learn Swift. The Apodiformes diversified during the Eocene, at the end of which the extant families were present; fossil genera are known from all over temperate Europe, between today's Denmark and France, such as the primitive swift-like Scaniacypselus [5] (Early–Middle Eocene) and the more modern Procypseloides (Late Eocene/Early Oligocene – Early Miocene). A prehistoric genus sometimes assigned to the swifts, Primapus (Early Eocene of England), might also be a more distant ancestor. Swifts live in perpetual summer. They inhabit the air like nothing else on the planet. They watched the continents shuffle to their present positions and the mammals evolve. They are not ours, though we like to claim them. They defy all our categories and present no passports as they surf the winds across the world. They sleep in the air, their wings controlled by an alert half-brain. Yet for all their adaptability and longevity swifts have recently been added to the UK’s Red List of endangered birds. This work collates late-1990s research findings from the field of ornithology to provide a thoroughly modern overview of swift identification and distribution. This edition has revised artwork and maps, and much new textual material." Mayr, Gerald (2003). "A new Eocene swift-like bird with a peculiar feathering" (PDF). Ibis. 145 (3): 382–391. doi: 10.1046/j.1474-919x.2003.00168.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03 . Retrieved 2013-10-27.Many swifts spend 99% of their time flying, eating and sleeping on the wing, and some never land at all Resemblances between swifts and swallows are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar life styles based on catching insects in flight. [1] Early study of Swifts based on a colony nesting in the tower of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The book includes detailed instruction, ample illustrations, and clear examples. It teaches you best practices from an experienced Mac and iOS developer. The book emphasizes how to use Xcode, Playgrounds, and REPL. The taxonomy of the swifts is complicated, with genus and species boundaries widely disputed, especially amongst the swiftlets. Analysis of behavior and vocalizations is complicated by common parallel evolution, while analyses of different morphological traits and of various DNA sequences have yielded equivocal and partly contradictory results. [4]

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The Breeding Distribution and Habitats of the Pied Flycatcher (Muscicapa Hypoleuca) in Britain - Bruce Campbell Swifts live almost entirely in the air. They eat, drink, sleep, mate and gather their nesting materials on the wing, fly thousands of miles across the world, navigating their way around storms, never lighting on tree, cliff or ground, until they return home with the summer. The wingtip bones of swiftlets are of proportionately greater length than those of most other birds. Changing the angle between the bones of the wingtips and forelimbs allows swifts to alter the shape and area of their wings to increase their efficiency and maneuverability at various speeds. [10] They share with their relatives the hummingbirds a unique ability to rotate their wings from the base, allowing the wing to remain rigid and fully extended and derive power on both the upstroke and downstroke. [11] The downstroke produces both lift and thrust, while the upstroke produces a negative thrust (drag) that is 60% of the thrust generated during the downstrokes, but simultaneously it contributes lift that is also 60% of what is produced during the downstroke. This flight arrangement might benefit the bird's control and maneuverability in the air. [12]Chantler, Phillip; Driessens, Gerald (2000). Swifts: A Guide to the Swifts and Treeswifts of the World. London: Pica Press. ISBN 1-873403-83-6. Thankfully, there are people in the UK and across Europe striving to ensure a future for swifts. Their actions and stories are woven into the narrative, demonstrating how change is brought about by passionate, determined individuals, whose actions show that everyone can do something to keep these superb birds screaming through our skies. Martins, Thais; Mead, Christopher J. (2003). "Swifts". In Perrins, Christopher (ed.). The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Firefly Books. pp. 346–350. ISBN 1-55297-777-3. What is even more amazing than what we learn about swifts is how little we know about them, still. Until 1943, when hunters in a Peruvian rainforest flushed out 13 ringed birds from a hollow tree, observers north and south of the equator had no idea where swifts went for half of the year, and we’re still not much the wiser. The birds’ scientific name, Apus apus, comes from a Greek root word meaning “footless” because of an ancient belief that they never landed; in the 17th century, British swift watchers thought they flew to the moon in winter. Now, thanks to a recent Swedish study, we know that in the non-breeding season, many birds spend 99% of their time flying, eating and sleeping on the wing, and some never land at all.