Hi I have already posted this to the local Cairns group but I would like ask as wide an audience as possible. I am relatively new to birding in Australia (emigrated from UK in March 2012) and only moved to Cairns last November. As a result I don’t have many reference books for Aussie birds yet (waiting for HBW to go live online this year) hence this question. On 7th Feb I was sitting in my garden at Yorkeys Knob (just north of Cairns) doing some work on the laptop when I noticed a group of four swifts / swiftlets circling. I had been seeing large numbers of Fork-tailed Swifts over the house in the last couple of weeks and was still hoping to fluke a White-throated Needletail or possibly even a House Swift so I had a careful look through them. There were three clear White-rumped Swiftlets but the fourth showed no white on the rump at all. In size and structure it appeared to be identical to the white-rumps. It had a very fluttering flight interspersed with short glides. The tail when it was faned was slightly forked but not as deeply as the accompanying swiftlets. It appeared to be uniformly dark all over, there was no contrast at all between the under and upper parts, it did not appear to be any darker than the White-rumps accompanying it. I saw the birds twice but unfortunately not once I had grabbed my camera. My question is can White-rumps ever show all dark rumps? Many thanks Dom ===============================
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