I need to get out more. By Meryl Faulkner Imagine mating while tumbling end over end and falling 500 feet through the air. But that's what white throated swifts seem to do. As for nesting, Phil Unitt's Bird Atlas Project handbook mentions nest sites under freeway bridges as well as more traditional spots like the cliffs at Torrey Pines. Some nest sites such as one site in Nevada are used over long periods of time, over 54 years, longer than the life spans of the individual birds.
Swifts are a challenge to rehabilitators.
The nestlings snap food from the parents' mouths and don't gape as do the songbirds. This makes feeding them a challenge. Luckily like the rest of our orphans, they learn to grab a syringe and swallow cat food, albeit with some reluctance. Swifts cannot fly from the ground since their legs are small and weak, whilst their sharp clawed feet are well adapted to clinging to vertical surfaces. Hence their release has to be from a height of a couple of stories at least.