SICK´S SWIFT Chaetura meridionalis
Swifts are almost completely aerial, living most of their life on the wing and touching land only to breed - obviously this makes them extremely hard to photograph!. Sick´s Swift (often misheard as "six swifts!!") is one of two species of Chaetura or "spinetail" swifts, characterised by their short, square tails and long, scythe-shaped wings which give them a bat-like silhouette. Sick´s is much the commonest of the Paraguayan swifts and the likely contender for that short-tailed swift flying over urban areas.
Click on the images to enlarge them.
FIGURE 1 - (FPAVE3182PH) Roosting adult, Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith November 2011).
FIGURE 2 - (FPAVE3183PH) Same individual as (FPAVE3182PH) (Paul Smith November 2011).
FIGURE 3 - (FPAVE1357PH) Adult, Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith September 2008).
FIGURE 4 - (FPAVE1358PH) Adult, Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith September 2008).
FIGURE 5 - (FPAVE2549PH) Adults, PN Médanos del Chaco, Departamento Boquerón (Matt Denton October 2010).
FIGURE 6 - (FPAVE3186PH) Nest, Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith December 2011).
VIDEO - (FPAVE1359VI) Adults in flight, Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith March 2010).
Designed by Paul Smith 2006. This website is copyrighted by law.
Material contained herewith may not be used without the prior written permission of FAUNA Paraguay.
Material on this page was provided by Paul Smith and Matt Denton and is used with permission.
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Chaetura meridionalis
1 (FPAVE1360RE) Flight calls recorded Encarnación, Departamento Itapúa (Paul Smith September 2008).
2 (FPAVE1361RE) Flight calls recorded Salerno, Departamento Itapúa (Myriam Velázquez October 2001).
Click the link to hear the call. Longer versions of this call can be downloaded from the Paraguay page of our partner website Xeno-Canto - the largest collection of freely downloadable Neotropical bird calls available online.