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.
