Out Of Africa! The Beijing Swift’s Incredible Journey Charted At Last

A ground-breaking study has revealed that the Beijing Swifts1 which breed at The Summer Palace in Beijing, travel more than 13,000km to spend the winter in southern Africa before returning the following Spring. This means that, in its lifetime, the average Beijing Swift will cover a migration distance greater than 180,000 km, about half of the distance from Earth to the Moon. These iconic birds � synonymous with Beijing since 1417 when they made their nests in the original city gatehouses � arrive in Beijing in April and, after breeding, begin their long journey to Africa in late July, taking a route that first leads them west-northwest into Mongolia, from where they pass north of the Tianshan mountains, then south through Iran and central Arabia into tropical Africa, before spending 3 months of the winter in Namibia and the Western Cape They begin the return journey in February, retracing a similar route, arriving in Beijing in mid-April, a journey that sees them cross about 20 borders. The project, a collaboration between scientists from Beijing and Guangzhou in China, Belgium, Sweden and the UK, began in May 2014 when ultra-lightweight ‘backpacks’ containing tiny light sensing geolocators were fitted to 31 Beijing Swifts as part of an ongoing banding operation by the China Birdwatching Society at The Summer Palace. The geolocators, generously provided by scientists in Sweden and the UK, log the position of the Swift by measuring day length and local midday from which positions are calculated. When the Swift is recaptured, one year later, the data is downloaded and analysed using special software. Until now there was only speculation about the journeys made by one of Beijing’s iconic birds. For the first time we know the distance travelled, the route taken and wintering areas used by an individual bird. As in many other parts of the world, Swifts in Beijing have declined dramatically (60 per cent in the last 30 years, according to a Beijing Professor). Understanding their movements will help scientists and conservationists to discover the reasons for the decline and to put in place measures to help them.