Cypseloides niger
Silhouette: vectorized by Rob Sparks · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
The American black swift, or more simply black swift (Cypseloides niger), is a species of bird that is found from northern British Columbia in Canada through the United States and Mexico to Costa Rica and Brazil. They are also found in the Caribbean.
The American black swift was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other swallows and swifts in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo nigra. Gmelin based his description on that of French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson who, in 1760, had described and illustrated "Le Martinet de Saint Dominigue" from a preserved specimen. The type locality is Hispaniola: Saint-Domingue was a French colony on the Caribbean island. The American black swift is now placed with seven other swifts in the genus Cypseloides and was introduced in 1848 by the German naturist August Vollrath Streubel. The genus name combines the genus Cypselus introduced by Johann Illiger in 1811 and the Ancient Greek -oidēs meaning "resembling". The specific epithet niger is the Latin word for "black".
Three subspecies... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vancouver | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 2 | San José | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 3 | Mexico City | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 4 | Seattle | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | San Francisco | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vancouver Aquarium | 🇨🇦 Canada |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Black Swift sighting in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, based on 44 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 225th most-seen of the 348 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and July
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Black Swift in Tortuguero National Park on a given day, against under 5% in August to May, the lowest months. Those are among Tortuguero National Park's wettest months, with about 500 mm of rain a month against 160 mm in March.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black Swift sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
9th of 26
Of the 26 parks where we can rate Black Swift sightings, Tortuguero National Park ranks 9th at under 5%. The best odds are in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park (Jamaica, about 10%), Jasper National Park (Canada, about 10%) and Glacier National Park (United States, about 10%).
Same family: Apodidae
The closest relatives of the Black Swift that you can see in Tortuguero National Park (family Apodidae, Swifts) are Gray-rumped Swift (about 20%) and White-collared Swift (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black Swift is recorded against all the birds logged in Tortuguero National Park (44 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
