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Angola Swallow ??? (1 Viewer)

leon

Well-known member
This bird has me totally confused. They (so i am told) are common in the area. I shot them one early morning (after a heavy thunderstorm the pervious evening). These birds were circling around the garden (this is a big area as the house is on a farm) at very high speed. I thought , ahha what a great opertunity to take a photo, but these guys were just too fast. They apeared to be catching insects of some kind. The farm is outside potchefstroom (150km west of Johannesburg).

The closed ID I have is the Angola Swallow, but there spread are not shown here.

I saw the same speci of birds a month later again, but over some fields in the area.

The white dots on the tail were quite distintive. Picture were shot on 25 Dec 2003.

Please help?
 

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Hi Leon,

I am not familiar with Angola Swallow, but your photos look a lot like Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica.

Peter
 
Fulmar said:
Hi Leon,

I am not familiar with Angola Swallow, but your photos look a lot like Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica.

Peter
Does the barn swallow also have white dots on its tail ?
 
Yes , it has, but you only seethem when it is spreading the tail like in your last photo_ I will have to look it up what Angola swallow looks like but I have to say these look quite barn swallow-like.
 
No, it all makes sence now. My guide says nothing about the spots on the tail, so I assumed that it had to be Angola Swallow. Acording to my guide they are very simular.
The differences are that the Angola Swallow has shallower fork in tail, the chest is grey not cream. This actually makes it clear that the birds posted are Barn Swallow's.

Its the dots on the tail that trough me off. Thanks for the help.
 
I wish I could see more of the true color of the area of the throat and forehead. Also, it may be just an impression but I thought the outer retrices of H. rustica were longer than those of the birds in the photo.
 
Leon,
Describe the color of the throat for me. If I look at one angle on my monitor it seems all blue and from another angle it seems blue under the chin and then becoming reddish going toward the pectoral zone.
 
More pics. Hi Eduardo, the return of the prodigal.
 

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cuckooroller said:
Leon,
Describe the color of the throat for me. If I look at one angle on my monitor it seems all blue and from another angle it seems blue under the chin and then becoming reddish going toward the pectoral zone.

Sorry for the late reply, had to commute home. They were so fast that I could not cleary see. I took hundreds of pictures in trying to catch them in flight. I will check if I have one that shows the chest clearly. Will be back in a few minutes.
 
leon said:
Sorry for the late reply, had to commute home. They were so fast that I could not cleary see. I took hundreds of pictures in trying to catch them in flight. I will check if I have one that shows the chest clearly. Will be back in a few minutes.
It has a very small redish patch on the head and on just below the beak, hardly visible. This image has been over colour saturated to show this detail.

Sorry for the bad images.
 

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cuckooroller said:
. [snip] Also, it may be just an impression but I thought the outer retrices of H. rustica were longer than those of the birds in the photo.

I have looked through all the pics and it never appears to be long. I know that the were constanly turning, applying some "rudder" pressure, but it does appear to have a shallower V than the H.rustica.
 
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Checking albigularis and dimidiata. I don't have angolensis ranging and rustica should not be common.

Well, they range but both have white throats so we can forget them.
 
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All are certainly Barn Swallows (NOT Angola)... the only ones I can't ID for certain as such, are the somewhat distant swallows in thread 1 photo 2.
 
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I looked it up at home and also for me they are clearly Barn swallowsHirundo rustica.
I have to add that when I was in South Africa in winter 1995/1996 , H. rustica was by far the commonest swallow in most places, outnumbering all african species we saw.
And some of the Barn swallows were also moulting tail feathers then (is that normal?).
 
leon said:
This bird has me totally confused. They (so i am told) are common in the area. I shot them one early morning (after a heavy thunderstorm the pervious evening). These birds were circling around the garden (this is a big area as the house is on a farm) at very high speed. I thought , ahha what a great opertunity to take a photo, but these guys were just too fast. They apeared to be catching insects of some kind. The farm is outside potchefstroom (150km west of Johannesburg).

The closed ID I have is the Angola Swallow, but there spread are not shown here.

I saw the same speci of birds a month later again, but over some fields in the area.

The white dots on the tail were quite distintive. Picture were shot on 25 Dec 2003.

Please help?

Yep, your Barn Swallows are possibly young birds (therefore 1cy in December), because the shape of the tip of tail feathers is quite angular and differs much from adult's tail feathers (especially outermost). Barn swallows has white spots typically in 5 outer tail feathers (2nd-6th TF) in both side and those two feathers in the centre are without spots in both sexes (1st TF). Sometimes some females has even 2nd TF without spots. Some Barn Swallow individuals (adult) start to moult during the autumn migration, in september. I have ringed Barn Swallows since year 2000 and about 400-500 birds per year. One my ringed bird has controlled in South Africa.
 
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