Davide D'Amico Small birds like swifts and swallows that migrate long distances have been predicted to travel up to 500 kilometres per day, but new evidence shows that one species of swift can cover far more ground than that. Susanne Åkesson and Giuseppe Bianco at Lund University in Sweden have shown that common swifts ( Apus apus) can fly an average of 570 kilometres per day. The fastest swifts covered 832 kilometres a day. Advertisement Swifts can fuel up on insects without landing, which allows them to remain in flight for about 10 months of the year. “They are very special birds. Thanks to their small size and also this fly-and-forage strategy, they can generate very high migration speeds over time,” says Åkesson. “For ordinary birds, like waders and ducks and songbirds, they need to be spending some time sitting on the ground foraging before they fly, but the swifts, they can feed a little bit every day and feed on the wing.”