Indonesian/Brown Honeyeater and Sand Martin sighting - Bali?!?

[Paul Rose <>]

Hello birdos,

 

Now back in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I have been perusing a couple of things since my trip through Bali on the way to Melbourne.  As an aside to this e-mail, I was in Bali for 17 days visiting five areas, so if anyone would like some feedback I would be happy to provide some on the sites I visited and some highlights.

Anyway, without further ado. 

 

Firstly, is Indonesian Honeyeater split from Brown Honeyeater?

 

Secondly, and certainly more importantly than just adding another tick, I spent several days at Bedugul in central Bali, staying at a resort that backed onto the lake.  Not surprisingly, amongst many other interesting birds, a lot of swallows and swiftlets hawked insects over the lake as well as the adjacent ditches and rice padis.  Following the lure of cave swiftlets and looking for edible nest-swiftlets (no mossies at this location although present at Ubud) I spent a great deal of time tracking these fast flying birds as they passed back and forth.  Amongst some lower flying swallows was a single uniformly brown bird with a brown breast band against white underparts. The overall shape was classic for a martin and the tail was slightly notched.  Head and cheeks were brown, uniform with upperparts and wings.  The bird passed many times as it worked the ditch no more than 3m in front of me. If this bird was a sand martin, and I have seen plenty, including those as 'bank swallows' in Ontario where I grew up, then this bird is well out of range I believe, at least according to the literature I have for Bali, SE Asia and the distribution map in Swallows and Martins of the World (Helm Press).

Thoughts on this sighting would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers for now,

 

Paul