Black trip hammer

The black trip hammer ( Apus apus ), Bird of the family of the apodidés , frequent in the cities and villages, is the bird characteristic of the sky of summer in France. It remains there of at the end of April at the beginning of August.

Characteristics

average weight: 42 G
length: 16 cm
scale: 42 to 48 cm
longevity: between 10 and 20 years

Behavior

Excel sailing, the trip hammer can reach speeds of 140 km/h and passes its whole life to fly. It is with ground only exceptionally and, of course, after the blossoming and at the time of the laying. Its speed does one of the fastest animals of it. Extremely precise, it is able to enter a small hole of wall, where it installed its nest, without decreasing its pace.

The trip hammers always move groups some, sometimes very important. The black Trip hammer spends the winter to Africa, mainly to the south of the equator, and migrates at the end of spring. Initially visible in the south of Europe, it gains little by little the whole of the continent until the Scandinavia and the Siberia.

The black trip hammer nourishes air Plancton which it collects up to 5 km of altitude. It captures more than 500 species different of insects which it is able to recognize in full vol. If the weather conditions do not allow a sufficient food, the trip hammer can change area. They sleep while flying in group of way circular or with the liking of airstreams by seeking zones of inversion of temperature a few kilometres from altitude.

This species recognizes easily Hirondelle by its body more frayed and larger, a general coloring more sunk much and without white areas. In the same way the large troops as they form and the piercing cries that they push are characteristic. These strident continuations in which one observes many young adults not nidificateurs marks the limits of the territory of a colony of trip hammers.

Nesting and reproduction

The trip hammers build their nest in anfractuosities of walls and see themselves only in the cities and the villages. They are in general faithful to their nest which they re-use each year. Sexual maturity is reached as from the 3rd year.

The female lays two to three eggs which it only broods during 18 to 21 days. It, lasting this time, is nourished by the male. The two parents deal with the food of the young people who can leave the nest after 5 to 6 weeks. The adults store the insects which they capture in their throat, it is only when this ball reaches 1 or 2 G which they return to nourish their small.

The growth of the young people is marked by two periods of slimming, at the time of the formation of the plumage and the time of the take-off. It is not rare that on this date the parents already began their migration towards the Africa. The young people must manage all alone in a few days to learn how to drive out. Except exception, they will pass nearly two years without being posed.

Migration

It is a migrating species which in summer has a surface of distribution which covers most of Eurasia (Western Europe, Mediterranean basin, Central Asia, north of the China) and which joined in winter a good third of Africa in the south of the equator.

Rarefaction of the trip hammers

the oceanic depressions causing of the periods of continuous bad weather at the time of the nesting can certain years decimate the colonies of trip hammers (adult reproducers and chicks). Only the particular behavior of the young adults can save them.
modern constructions hardly any more offer of sites of nesting favorable to this pledged in an original manner species to the cliffs and which had found in traditional human constructions (turns, bell-towers, buildings raised out of stones) of the favorable sites (below of roof, holes between the stones).

Rescue of the young trip hammers

The trip hammer is one of the rare birds which learns how to fly and to nourish itself without the assistance of its parents. Which can leave the nest without waiting until their offspring is autonomous.

The young trip hammers can remain (around August in France) with their reserves of grease an about eight days without being nourished. At the edge of their nest, clutched well with their greenhouses, they involve their wings in fast beats. That can last several days. Then, they launch out in briefs flights to turn over to the nest. As soon as they feel " prêts" , it seems that they await the favorable disturbances, they start their first migration towards the great South.

Some are left there less better. They fall on the ground. Their scale then does not exceed the 25 or 30 centimetres. It is a not very savage bird (it never crosses the man). The refuges can save them. At the beginning, the trip hammers shipwrecked men are generally dehydrated. Some water drops presented to the finger in front of the nozzle refresh them. The food of compensation is summarized with pieces of coated chopped meat of saliva, presented at the end of the finger and that the young trip hammers charge almost to the first phalange… One supplements it with flies, always coated of saliva.

The trip hammer is satisfied with a made nest of a paperboard which one hollowed out a side and furnished with soft fabric. Its droppings, when it is young, are coated with a bag which makes it possible to the parents to reject them out of the nest. It is " propre" with the human direction of the term. The young trip hammer needs a presence. He will not hesitate to leave his nest for piailler in front of his " sauveur" : he clings strongly (without pain) to his hand, his clothing and chirps between two meals.

When it feels ready to leave, it keeps the nest, is clutched with the handle which one cut out in the paperboard. It beats wings like one makes tractions. The " should then be posed; nid" in height, on a table, even a cupboard and to leave open doors and windows. Because it will launch out several times, and will return. To remain a few days. Then, it will spring towards the clouds, the South. To join to them his. And perhaps to return.

What is sure, it is that with the difference of many oisillons, it will have learned how to fly all alone and will be able to be nourished all alone, without the least training.

A last note:: parasites, which one can take for kinds of ticks, but in fact of pale anapenes ( Crataerina pallida , dipterous dippoboscidé) exhaust them. It is advisable to disencumber them.

Parasites

A frequent ectoparasite of the black trip hammer is a dipterous hematophagus, the cratérine (Crataerina pallida) .

Other visible species of the kind Apus in France

Apus Melba or Tachymarptis Melba : Trip hammer with white belly or alpine Trip hammer or royal Trip hammer. This large trip hammer twice heavier than the black trip hammer meets in the south-east of France.
Apus pallidus : pale Trip hammer. Difficult to distinguish from the black, Mediterranean trip hammer.

Sources

the Brown owl n°78 and n°79
the black trip hammer
The Common Swift website
'' APUS '' life The Virtual Magazine off the Common Swift

External bonds

the black Trip hammer
Black Trip hammer Webcam, Aalsmeer, the Netherlands

Random links: