I was looking over the dam at a local property today, and saw what I first thought were swallows. However, a few things made me wonder: First, they were flocking — there was a good 15-25 birds together. I don’t recall seeing swallows in those numbers before.
Second, they were up higher than what I’m used to seeing — in my mind, swallows often fly much lower, and frequently dip a drink in the water as well as catch their dinner on the wing. these were flying at and above the tree top level — lots of tall large eucalypts. And I saw none dipping a drink in the dam.
Also, not all appeared to have forked tails — at first I assumed martins.
Finally, it was as a cool change came through this afternoon.
So does it look like I was watching a flock of swallows with perhaps a couple martins tossed in, or were these fork-tailed swifts and white-throated needle tails? To my knowledge, I’ve never seen the latter before, though I gather they are not terribly uncommon at the leading edge of a cool change.
Thanks in advance for your help to a casual birder.
Cheers Gordon Cain Schofields, NSW (NW Blacktown, close to the Hawkesbury, NW Sydney) ===============================
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Comments
One response to “Swifts or flocking swallows?”
Hi Gordon,
Swallows and martins are gregarious as are swifts. Therefore the number shouldn’t be an indicator. (I’ve seen flocks of hundreds of swallows and/or martins) Swallows and martins hunt for aerial insects as do swifts. This kind of prey flies high in high pressure systems and low in low pressure systems. Therefore the hunting height depends on the prey and indirectly on the pressure system. And yes, independent of the pressure system swallows and martins dip a drink, but swifts do that too. I would rather look for flight style, structural and plumage field marks (plus calls) to identify swallows, martins and swifts. Finally, there shouldn’t be any swifts in NSW at this time of the year.
Hope that helped a bit!
Cheers,
Nikolas
—————- Nikolas Haass nhaass@yahoo.com Sydney, NSW
—– Original Message —- href=”mailto:birding-aus@vicnet.net.au”>birding-aus@vicnet.net.au Sent: Fri, July 23, 2010 7:46:48 PM
I was looking over the dam at a local property today, and saw what I first thought were swallows. However, a few things made me wonder: First, they were flocking — there was a good 15-25 birds together. I don’t recall seeing swallows in those numbers before.
Second, they were up higher than what I’m used to seeing — in my mind, swallows often fly much lower, and frequently dip a drink in the water as well as catch their dinner on the wing. these were flying at and above the tree top level — lots of tall large eucalypts. And I saw none dipping a drink in the dam.
Also, not all appeared to have forked tails — at first I assumed martins.
Finally, it was as a cool change came through this afternoon.
So does it look like I was watching a flock of swallows with perhaps a couple martins tossed in, or were these fork-tailed swifts and white-throated needle tails? To my knowledge, I’ve never seen the latter before, though I gather they are not terribly uncommon at the leading edge of a cool change.
Thanks in advance for your help to a casual birder.
Cheers Gordon Cain Schofields, NSW (NW Blacktown, close to the Hawkesbury, NW Sydney) ===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) href=”mailto:birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au”>birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au
http://birding-aus.org ===============================
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