Preferring life on the wing

Richard Collins marvels at the swifts’ mastery of the Iguaçu Falls and the skies

ON seeing the great waterfall at Iguaçu, Eleanor Roosevelt famously exclaimed “poor Niagara!” And well she might; the river separating Brazil and Argentina plunges over an 80 metre-high cliff in a torrent of unimaginable power. The channel is almost 3km wide and, when the river is in flood, there may be as many as 274 individual cataracts.

One interesting feature of Iguaçu goes unnoticed by most visitors. Every so often, small black birds assemble into flocks and go whirling about in the misty spray above the great falls. The birds look like locusts or swallows but they are, in fact, swifts. Known as “great dusky swifts”, they scoop up the insects which abound in the warm tropical air. Occasionally, a swift will disengage from the flock and fly straight into the torrent.