Val and all,
Indeed White-browed and Masked Woodswallows do behave in this way, as
I've often seen in the Capertee Valley on stormy summer afternoons.
The dark underparts you saw indicate White-browed, but it's always
worth searching these flocks for Masked which could be mixed in with
them. Both White-browed and Masked call as you describe. The Dusky's
call is harsher, more scratchy. Such graceful and exhilarating birds.
Cheers,
Carol
At 10:01 AM +1100 3/11/07, Val Curtis wrote:
It was about 30 minutes before sunset and there was a storm
approaching, lots of heavy dark clouds and very little wind. They
were behaving as I would expect to see swifts behave in the
conditions, circling very high over the trees which are about 60
meters tall (I think!) and some of the birds were at least that high
again, some so high I could barely see them with the naked eye in
the poor light. At a conservative guess there were about 40 that I
could see, but there could have been many, many more out of my field
of view behind the tree tops
I was unable to positively identify the species but they all
appeared uniformly dark underneath in the poor light and were
calling constantly with a gentle 'chup, chup' sort of sound.
Is this a know bebaviour of Woodswallow species?
Val
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
