Swallows and swifts are a real symbol of warm summer evenings. They rush over with incredible speed over people's heads, cleverly catching flies and other small insects. Of course, these are completely different biological species, but the similarity between the swallow and the swift is obvious. Consider the most revealing examples.
Both species are widespread not only throughout our country, but throughout the world. Given that in the Far North there are not enough insects, swallows and swifts there also are not. Most of them are in the
steppe zones. The size and general anatomical structure of these birds are also similar.
This similarity between the swallow and the swift is due to an almost identical lifestyle. All of them feed only on insects, grabbing them right in flight. That is why they have sharp and elongated wings, a wide beak and almost atrophied leg limbs.
Swallows and swifts actually spend all their time in the air, catching edible trifles. Both species feed their chicks with an original dish: the caught insects in their beak with the help of sticky saliva are combined into a “bag”, with which the calves are treated. As you can see, the similarity between the swallow and the swift is obvious.
In addition, these birds extremely rarely land on the ground. This is due to the atrophy of the legs we have already mentioned. Once on the surface of the soil, they can not keep their owner in an upright position, and therefore the bird takes off, only relying on developed and powerful wings.
By the way, contrary to popular belief, both of these birds can take off from the ground (we already wrote about this), but they just have nothing to do there. Crawling large insects do not interest them, and they can become the food of some predator very quickly.
In the structure of the paw, another similarity appears between the swallow and the swift: it is designed so that the bird can catch on completely steep surfaces, which helps representatives of these species nest on steep rocks, where predators simply cannot physically get into.
But in the same paw lies the difference between swallows and swifts. In the swift, this limb is four-fingered, and the fingers are apart. He is simply not able to grab a branch or wire.
The swallow has one finger pointing back: with such a foot it is easy to grab onto a tree branch or wire. If you see a bunch of birds on a telegraph wire, these are just swallows.
But what is the main feature that unites two different biological species? It's about nutrition. Rushing over us in their rapid flight, they eat kilograms of midges, mosquitoes and other harmful insects.
When in some locality of the middle strip there are few swallows or swifts, this immediately manifests itself in a sharp increase in the number of blood-sucking insects. They not only give a person a lot of inconvenience, but also suffer a whole bunch of diseases, and therefore these birds should be protected.
In general, all birds (swallows and swifts - including) are an integral part of the biogeocenosis in which they live. Any potentially harmful human activity for them ultimately turns against him. Remember this!