A surgical strike this afternoon Jan 3 with Charlie Andrews from
Sydney and Jun Matsui from Cairns yielded one Red-rumped Swallow at
1345, actually in the old rusty roofed barn near the corner of
Somerset Road north of Newell Beach (Far North Queensland), also 5
Barn Swallows. I hope to post a pic on the ABID site. The bird was
singing quite well, and had quite bold dark chestnut streaks on the
underparts. Be careful not to annoy the house owners here, do be
discreet.......
Characters seem to fit quite well for the taxon japonica I think, and
the underwing coverts were concolourous with the rest of the
underwing, which eliminates Striated Swallow Hirindo striolata. The
latter is a quite likely vagrant and has been suspected in the past,
but not yet proven.
Also a flock of about 50 Fork-tailed Swifts north of Yule Point on the
coast road, to the south of Port Douglas. Most had nice quite long
forked tails, but 5 or 6 birds were in heavy moult, with abraded inner
primaries and strikingly short slightly rounded tails.
These would be easily confused with the House Swift Apus (affinis)
nipalensis, but useful distinguishing characters are the raggedy
appearance of the tail tip, where the feathers are clearly regrowing,
not being neatly squared off or slightly notched as in House Swift,
the very long wings of the Fork-tails, the neat and narrow white rump
and the dark throats. The birds were also calling, a typical Apus
twittering scream.
Phil Gregory
www.cassowary-house.com.au
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