The Swifts
- Behavior: Swifts are highly aerial, spending up to 10 months of the year in the air.
- Nesting: They inhabit the holes and slits in the upper, older stones of the Western Wall.
- Significance: A specific colony of roughly 88 families of common swifts returns annually to the site, with their arrival often welcomed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
- Diet/Sleep: They catch insects in the air and can sleep while gliding, sometimes traveling vast distances between nesting and foraging areas.
The common swift, which spends is entire life flying or sitting its nest, returns from wintering in South Africa to nest between the cracks in the ancient wall. For over 2,000 years, the crevices between the wall’s massive limestone blocks have served as the perfect nesting location for the swift (Apus apus). https://www.greenprophet.com/2012/03/western-wall-birds-swifts/
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