Further to David Geering's commentary about Needletails dispersing when the
sky is clear, my experience from my house in Turramurra (N Sydney) is a bit
different. Often, I think that the birds don't disperse as such, but they
move around, quite quickly, in large groups. I can be sitting out on my
deck (bins at the ready just in case!) and the sky is clear - within 2
minutes I will have a flock above (I think my best count is over 200 birds,
taken in 98/99 before I joined this list) and after about 5 minutes of
frenzied observing looking for anything unusual (have picked up a couple of
Fork Tailed Swifts "mixed in" this way), the birds have gone and the sky is
clear of swifts again.
I do also see smaller parties (15-20 birds) but not often very small groups
of 5 or fewer.
Regards
Tom Wilson
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