Fork-tailed Swift (Apus pacificus ) Report for 2007/08 Season.
[Summary of 54 sightings sent to me or published where I could find
them]
Last seasons first sighting was not from WA or Qld, but from NSW and
then NT. Alastair McKeough saw six birds in Sydney 29 July, and
maybe these were over-wintering birds or pre-breeders, then Marc
Gardner saw ten birds on 25 November near Jabiru and Denise
Goodfellow reported 200 birds 15 Dec on the Tablelands Highway, NT.
Phil Gregory saw the first Qld birds: about 40 in Cairns 1 January.
The first Vic birds were seen by Jennifer Spry 26 Jan 30 km North of
Bairnsdale
The first WA birds were not reported until 28 Feb when Colin Heap saw
58 birds at Port Gregory.
John Layton reported 20 birds 11 March in Canberra.
Lastly in time but first in magnitude John Turner spied 2000 birds
moving over his home in Adelaide. He rang and e-mailed Friends and
soon had much of the SA population of ornithologists & birdos looking
out for Fork-tailed Swifts. Well John it paid off for 14 other
people reported swifts in SA that day. Not all the swifts were in SA
on that day though, as Tom Fletcher saw 10 at Ocean Grove and Richard
Walsh observed 50+ at Ferntree Gully, both in Vic, and both 14 March.
I have no reports from Tas for last season and I have not been able
to see a copy of Tas bird report.
The last sightings I have were both on 31 March when S. Davidson
reported 4 birds South of Eden in NSW and John Harris reported 1000+
birds 170 km N of Perth in WA. John also saw the same number the
previous day at the same location.
Of the 54 sightings I know of, 6 were made in NSW (down 16 on last
year), 2 in the NT (down 3), 14 in Qld (down 12), 17 in SA (down
2), 10 in Vic, 1 in ACT and 4 in WA.
I thank the following contributors: Malcolm Beeton(1), Don Brooks
(1), Kate Buckley (1), Jeffery Crocker (1), S. Davidson (1),
Nathaniel Doecke (1), Colin Driscoll (1), Tom Fletcher (2), Duncan
Fraser (2), Marc Gardner (1), Alan Gillanders (3), Denise Goodfellow
(1), Phil Gregory (2), John Harris (2), Colin Heap (1), Michael
Hunter (1), Brian Johnston (1), John Layton (2), Burt May (1),
Alastair McKeough (1), Barry McLean (1), Enid Pascoe (2), Mike Potter
(1), Steve Potter (1), Martyn Price (1), Colin Reid (2), Graham Snell
(1), Jennifer Spry (1), Winston Syson (1), Mike Tarburton (6),
Margaret Tiller (2), John Turner (3), Richard Walsh (1), Russel
Woodford (2), Marnix Zwankhuizen (1). [bracketed numbers indicate the
number of observations reported].
Michael Tarburton
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