Order APODIFORMES

Swifts
Swifts are aerial insect-feeders that spend the greater part of their lives in the air. So common at any one place by day, it is often a puzzle where they spend the nights. Being masters of the air, true swifts have very weak legs, and never perch like swallows on wires, branches, or rooftops, but cling to vertical surfaces. Mainly blackish birds, they have curved, sickle-shaped wings, and fly with alternating wing-beats and tilting glides, never closing the wings like the superficially similar swallows. (Derek Holmes & Stephen Nash, The Birds of Sumatra and Kalimantan, 1990)

Treeswifts
These swifts unlike the true swifts are not colonial, perch and nest in trees, and instead of chasing insects on the wing all day, they behave like flycatchers, darting out at intervals from their perch. When perched, the long crossed wing-tips are distinctive. (Smythies, The Birds of Borneo, 1999)

Photographed Species

Scientific Name	Common Name	Link
(Aerodramus fuciphagus)	Edible-nest Swiftlet	Image
(Aerodramus maximus)	Black-nest Swiftlet	Image
(Aerodramus vanikorensis)	Uniform Swiftlet	Image
(Apus nipalensis subfurcatus)	House Swift	Image
(Apus pacificus)	Pacific Swift	Image
(Collocalia affinis)	Plume-toed Swiftlet	Image
(Hirundapus giganteus giganteus)	Brown Needletail	Image
(Raphidura leucopygialis)	Silver-rumped Spinetail	Image
(Hemiprocne comata)	Whiskered Treeswift	Male	Female
(Hemiprocne longipennis)	Grey-rumped Treeswift	Male	Female