Dear Hirondellers,
Barn Swallow over water: by Martin GoodeyHere in west Arusha; at 3 degrees South - that's in Tanzania (or Tanganyika to some) - for more than three weeks little bands of shining satin Barn Swallows, seldom more than four-to-a-flock, have been dashing north into our persisting drought of death - an East African dust tunnel - visible on the climate maps.
They, together with nearly all the trans-Eremics (to die-hard 'boreocentrics' these are of course Palearctic migrant birds), will be very hard pushed indeed to maintain fat through this sector of their route. So I hope it's been raining, pouring in an unseasonal deluge, somewhere northwards - in the Horn, across Arabia, or beyond - in the Gulf, Iran and the 'farther Stans'!
Dawn March 30 again she promised some real rain, yet none came, and we saw only two Barn Swallows on the morning walk. However one was a fabulous male sporting the longest tail streamers that I have ever seen - in over fifty years of looking.
Gorgeous streamers grown in January; perhaps whilst skimming the flooded emerald plain of the Zambezi?
"Sometimes on migration in March-April they pass in numbers up to thirty; heading for a reed-bed roost on the greener eastern side of Arusha town."
J.A.Wolstencroft (writing in 2009)
"At times on migration they occur in vast numbers; I have myself heard the desert thorn trees crack under the weight of birds settling to roost."
C.W. Mackworth-Praed
(writing in 1955)
For an uplifting story about the current situation regarding Barn Swallows in West Africa go to:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/10000Birds/~3/A5T1jgIirB4/ebbakens-swallows-make-a-welcome-return.htm
Flying Swallow: photo Martin Goodey
