Super Swifts by Justin Anderson illustrated by Clover Robin

Subtitle: The small bird with amazing powers

Super Swifts is set in Africa, Europe and the UK BUT we do have swifts here in Australia - ork-tailed Swift (Apus pacificus); House Swift (Apus affinis); White-throated Needletail (Hirundapus caudacutus) and the Uniform Swiftlet (Aerodramus vanikorensis). One of our Australian netball teams is named The Swifts!

I find the topic of bird migration endlessly fascinating. Click the label on this post to find more books on this topic - try to find Circle by Australian illustrator Jeannie Baker. 

Swifts are a family of highly aerial birds known as Apodidae, which reside within the Apodiformes order alongside hummingbirds. ... Swifts have small, weak legs, which led to them sometimes being depicted without feet historically. ...  There are about 100 species of swifts, which are known for their high speeds, with the white-throated needletail reaching up to 169 km/h. They have elongated wingtip bones and the ability to rotate their wings from the base, which aids in their maneuverability and efficiency in flight. Swiftlets have evolved a form of echolocation to navigate dark caves. These birds are found worldwide except in the extremes of the polar, desert, and some oceanic islands, and migratory swifts travel from temperate regions to the tropics in winter. Their nests, often attached to vertical surfaces with saliva or located in wall cavities, are unique—some are used in the traditional bird's nest soup. Swifts are insectivores, hunting mid-flight, and their breeding and development patterns are more similar to seabirds than passerines. While no swift species has been recorded as extinct since 1600, some are considered endangered or vulnerable ... (Source)

All about swifts:

• Coloured dark, sooty brown but can look black against the sky 
• Pale patch on the throat, but this is often difficult to see in flight 
• Long, pointed wings held in a ‘boomerang’ shape 
• Wings are narrower than those of a Swallow or martin 
• Short, forked tail which can be folded to a point 
• Bullet-shaped head 
• You’ll often hear them before you see them – they make an unmistakable, high-pitched ‘scream’ 
• Swifts can travel up to 500 miles in one day
• They 'sleep' while flying - this is called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, where one half of their brain remains alert while the other half enters a sleep state.
• Swift fly slowly through rain as a way to keep clean
• Swift mate for life
• They can catch as many as 50,000 insects in a day
• They can live up to 21 years

Here is a map showing the journey of one swift in 2010 and you could show this video to your students:

Image source: Turning the Stones

The first thing I noticed in the two books I read today about swifts (see below for the second title) is their large eyes. So, I went hunting for a photo of a swift.

Images source: Audubon Society

I also thought about collective nouns which is a topic I find quite fascinating. What do you call a group of swifts? I found four possibilities Flight, Scream, Flock or Kettle!

Then I found this one - a sweep of swifts:

Swifts are highly agile and acrobatic birds known for their remarkable speed and graceful movements in the sky. When witnessed together, their collective presence forms a breathtaking spectacle as they swoop, loop, and glide through the air, displaying remarkable synchronization and coordination. The term sweep embodies the seamless and synchronized movements performed by these swifts, as if they are brushing through the atmosphere with remarkable elegance. The sight of a Sweep of Swifts evokes a sense of awe and wonder, as these social birds create a hypnotizing performance while efficiently navigating their surroundings.

Publisher blurb: A swift may not look like anything special—it’s just a plain brown bird, small enough to nestle in the palm of your hand—but these superheroes of the avian world can fly incredible distances amazingly quickly, reaching speeds of up to seventy miles per hour and spending ten months of every year in the air. Follow one female swift from the steamy forests of tropical central Africa to northern Europe as she navigates arid desert and restless ocean, dodging predators along the way. Eating, drinking, and sleeping on the wind, she won’t rest until she’s reached her nesting site. Woven through with fascinating facts amplified in an author’s note and index, Super Swifts fuses gorgeous collage illustrations and a lilting text to evoke the grandeur of a voyage like no other—and introduce a singular bird with amazing powers.

Text in a larger font provides a smooth narrative, ideal for a read-aloud, while text in a smaller font offers intriguing facts. A series of text boxes describe the swifts’ symbiotic relationship with the louse flies that ride north in their feathers, lay eggs in swift nests, and send a new generation of swift lice south in the fall. Robin’s mixed-media illustrations show the changing scenery in double-page spreads; smaller vignettes depict nesting details and a thrilling scene in which our protagonist must evade an attacking falcon. Kirkus

Super Swifts is published by Walker Books. I need to explain this series (and my confusion). When Walker Books started this series, where a narrative is paired with facts presented on the same page in a smaller font,  they were called Read and Wonder. To me this was the perfect series name. Then many years later the name changed to Nature Storybooks. Same format, same fabulous topics and most importantly same highly skilled illustrators. Fast forward to today - Walker Books are still producing these wonderful books which need to be added to EVERY school and public library BUT now there is no series name.  I can only ask why?

Companion book (you need this one in your library too):

See inside this book here

I am a huge fan of collage art by Clover Robin - here is her instagram page. Here are some two books I have talked about here she has illustrated:

Counting Birds

Together

Other Read and Wonder or Nature Storybook titles: