All species › Hummingbirds and swifts › Swifts › Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift
Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift | Panyptila cayennensis
Cayennegierzwaluw | Vencejo tijereta menor
The Lesser Swallow-tailed Swift is a slender black-and-white swift of the tropical lowlands of Central and South America. In the region it occurs only in Trinidad, where it is rather scarce. It builds a distinctive nest: a long, felted tube of plant down with the entrance at the bottom, hanging from a branch, rock face or wall. The birds often fly high, singly or in pairs.
Voice
A reedy or wheezy series of rapid twittering notes and a repeated, drawn-out pzeeeh. It often flies so high that calls cannot be heard.
Recording: Dante Buzzetti — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13 cm, slender, with long, narrow wings and a long, deeply forked tail that is usually held closed and then looks like a sharp spike. The plumage is mainly black. The throat and upper breast are white, and the white continues as a narrow half-collar onto the side of the neck. On each rear flank there is a square white patch, contrasting in flight with the black underparts. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Fork-tailed Palm Swift Tachornis squamata also has a long, closed forked tail, but is smaller and browner, with scaly, dirty-white underparts without sharp borders and no white flank patches. White-collared Swift Streptoprocne zonaris is much larger, with a complete white collar and a short tail. The Chaetura swifts of Trinidad are dark, with a short tail and no white on the throat or flanks.
Habitat
Edges and clearings of lowland rainforest and secondary forest, river valleys, farmland with scattered trees and settled areas. It usually hunts flying insects high in the air, sometimes with other swifts. The nest hangs from a large tree, a rock face, the underside of a bridge or the wall of a building; the two or three eggs lie on a shelf at the top of the tube.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In the region only in Trinidad, as a rather scarce resident in the lowlands and lower slopes. Outside the region from eastern Mexico (Veracruz) through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and Ecuador, through Amazonia and along the coast of south-eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Trinidad best looked for over forest edges and clearings in the Northern Range and the central lowlands, for example around the Arima Valley; among flocks of other swifts the white throat and white flank patches stand out. Nests can sometimes be found under bridges or on buildings near forest.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species has a very large range and also uses man-made structures as nest sites.
Scientific name
Panyptila cayennensis | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Hirundo cayennensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Panyptila was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Panyptila is Greek, from panu 'exceedingly, wholly' and ptilon 'feather': 'well-feathered', after the legs feathered down to the toes. cayennensis refers to Cayenne in French Guiana, where the species was described. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.