NOT a Barn Swallow

[RAOU Handbook <>]

Fellow birders,

it's not a Barn Swallow, so don't bother going. The Mt. Martha bird has
proved to be a Welcome Swallow with unusual amounts of dark on the chest and
a paler central and lower belly than normal. It also had dark centres to a
number of undertail coverts and pale grey flanks, as well as lacking white
underwing coverts. The chest band was not as uniformly solid on its lower
end as we had been led to believe, and the distribution of rufous in the
lower ear covert region was also too extensive to be Barn.  

Peter Lansley.