Short-tailed Swift

A small, gray-brown swift with a very short tail. The rump and tail are light brown. Length: 10 cm.; weight: 18 g. Rapidly flies back and forth chasing insects high in the air. Breeds in northern South America, Grenada and St. Vincent. Accidental in the Virgin Islands, but may eventually occur in Puerto Rico.

TAXONOMY: APODIFORMES; APODIDAE; Chaeturinae

References

Chantler, P. and G. Driessens. 2000. Swifts: a guide to swifts and treeswifts of the world, 2nd edition. Yale Univ. Press.

del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1999. Handbook of the Birds of the World, Vol. 5. Barn Owls to Hummingbirds. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Holmgren, J. 1998. A parsimonious phylogenetic tree for the swifts, Apodidae, compared with DNA-analysis phylogenies. Bull. B.O.C. 118(4):238-249.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Short-tailed Swift, Spanish text

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