Swift in Uganda--Kidepo (1 Viewer)

[Tom St]

Hello,
At our camp near Kidepo National Park, African Palm Swifts were abundant. However, I observed some other swifts one day that I hope can be IDed from these photos.
Out of the Ugandan swift species, I am considering Scarce Swift and African Swift as candidates. However, I do not have experience with either.
Photos taken on 23.02.2025.
Thank you for your help.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Structurally, it looks very good for Scarce Swift. Other candidates would be more 'Common Swift' like (including Common, African and Nyanza). My only worry would be a short tailed African Palm Swift (e.g. with broken or worn tail feathers).

 

[tconzemi]

Structurally, it looks very good for Scarce Swift. Other candidates would be more 'Common Swift' like (including Common, African and Nyanza). My only worry would be a short tailed African Palm Swift (e.g. with broken or worn tail feathers).

Very good summary
Especially last remark

 

[Tom St]

Interesting! Thank you both for your replies.
There were multiple swifts in the air that looked like this, so I assume they wouldn't all have been broken-tail African Palm Swifts.
For future encounters: how do I seal the ID on swifts like these? Get better photos? 😅 Unfortunately, they didn't vocalize.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Interesting! Thank you both for your replies.
There were multiple swifts in the air that looked like this, so I assume they wouldn't all have been broken-tail African Palm Swifts.
For future encounters: how do I seal the ID on swifts like these? Get better photos? 😅 Unfortunately, they didn't vocalize.

I think if the features were consistent across several birds, that points towards Scarce Swifts. In the photos, the tail looks consistent on both sides, which is also good for Scarce. If Palm Swifts have broken tail streamers, this will normally be uneven.

ML205208691 - African Palm Swift - Macaulay Library

Macaulay Library ML205208691; © Prof.Dr. Ahmet Karatash; Gezira, Sudan

macaulaylibrary.org

 

[tconzemi]

For future encounters: how do I seal the ID on swifts like these? Get better photos? 😅 Unfortunately, they didn't vocalize.

I went birding with local fundis in Africa many times and more than one swift was left undidentified. Just yesterday I saw a post by Derek Adams about burst photography in nightjars taking of with multiple pictures of wing and tail, a great idea to identify them. In swifts and obviously also in cisticolas short videos with song/call plus top photos might be the way to go. Single pictures in swift may be very deceptive, your short series is great compared to a single picture.