Among my favourite birds to watch in flight are the swifts. They are powerful fliers that most people will only ever see on the wing since they cannot perch like the swallows that they superficially resemble (they are more closely related to hummingbirds).  A friend of mine recently brought a story a from Discover Magazine (This Bird Can Fly for Six Months Without Landing Once) to my attention. Equipping the some Alpine Swifts with motion sensing equipment, a group of Swiss researchers were able to show that the birds, which breed in the mountains from southern Europe to the Himalayas, can stay aloft for months at a time during their overwinter migration in southern Africa.

Amazing!