Spark Bird: Adriaan Dokter And The Common Swift

BirdNote^®
Spark Bird: Adriaan Dokter And The Common Swift
Written by Ariana Remmel

This is BirdNote.

Ecologist Adriaan Dokter was entranced by birds at an early age.

Adriaan Dokter: I grew up in the Netherlands, close to the sea in the city of Haarlem. And you know, there were a lot of migratory birds around. So I would climb on a dune top and sit there early in the morning and just see all these birds go by.

         [Common Swift]

Adriaan Dokter: I was very fascinated with the Common Swift. They're really the sound of the summer and you hear them screeching over your house, even if you live in a city like I did. But the cool thing about these birds is they're really ultimate flyers.

Common Swifts spend most of their lives in the air. They migrate thousands of miles between continents, feasting on flying insects and even sleeping on the wing. In fact, the only time swifts need to land is while they’re nesting.

Adriaan Dokter: And after that they're just off and they fly almost for 10 months nonstop through the air. So, I mean, that really fascinated me that birds can be so adaptive to flight.

         [Common Swift]

Today, Adriaan uses weather radar to study how birds migrate and what people can do to protect them on their journey.

Hear more about Adriaan’s research in season 8 of Bring Birds Back. Available in your favorite podcast app and on our website BirdNote.org. I’m Jonese Franklin.

###
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Common Swift ML624581858 recorded by African Googre and ML619386889 recorded by Mark Plummer.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote July 2026
Narrator: Jonese Franklin

ID# PodBBB-50-2026-07-14     PodBBB-50

Reference:
https://adriaandokter.com/