RE: NOT a Barn Swallow

["Conole, Lawrie" <>]

> 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.  
> 
It sounds very much like an oddly marked bird I saw associating with
Tree Martins near Ballarat in 1994.  I speculated at the time in "The
Bird Observer" about it being a hybrid Barn/Welcome Swallow, but maybe
there are just a few wierd ones out there.

Lawrie Conole
Geelong, Victoria, Australia

http://yarra.vicnet.net.au/~birdsaus/painted.html
http://www.xnet.com/~ugeiser/Birds/TripReports/JavaBali96.html