A blur flew past me over the calm waters at the mouth of Kokanee Creek. At first, it could have been almost any smallish bird: sandpiper, kingfisher, kingbird, any of a half-dozen local swallows. For five minutes it banked and swooped over the water apparently hunting insects. Although it remained a blur, its behaviour suggested a swallow.
I repeatedly tried to take its picture, but it flew too close and fast. Repeatedly, by the time I clicked, the bird had moved out of the picture. On the few occasions it appeared, it was badly out of focus — except for one clear shot. Yep, it was a swallow, and a juvenile, but which one?
It was a problem: Species identification seemed to change depending upon the portion of the bird being examined. I was out of my depth even though there were few choices. Eventually, the picture was shared among five experienced birders, and while acknowledging some inconsistencies, the conclusion was that the mysterious bird was a juvenile Cliff Swallow. Indeed, I know of a nesting site for Cliff Swallows only eight kilometres from this spot.
The mysterious bird scouring the air for insects is revealed to be a juvenile Cliff Swallow.
Love the bird with reflection. It is an artistic shot.
Is this a trap? I am no expert on photo ID but would like to know how this could be a Cliff. The tail is notched not square, the undertail coverts are clean white and not dirty spotted, it lacks a dark hood. It looks like a yellow gape at the base of the bill. The white on the undertail does not wrap around the rump but looks like there could be a little notch of white at the base of the rump. The wings are pretty broad. My guess would be juv Tree Swallow.
Max et al.
This certainly has been a troubling image. A number of experienced birders have been consulted and my comments that follow are a compilation of their comments. Firstly, this bird DOES have a hood, not prominent, but definitely there. This would rule out Tree Swallow since it has, at all ages, a bicolored head – dark above, pale below. This bird can’t be a Violet-green because the white in the flanks does NOT extend up onto the rump. Barn can be ruled out by the shape of the tail. Bank can probably be ruled out by the lack of a breast band, (although not all agreed on that point). This leaves us with 2 possibilities: Cliff or N. Rough-winged. I wrote to the author of the CLSW account for BNA and he thought the bird was a Cliff Swallow, although I could tell from his tone that he was not 100% certain. But we settled on CLSW for the time being. Since then, another voice has come forward in favour of N. Rough-winged Swallow! I have subsequently reached out for more opinions. At the moment it seems to be a toss-up between NRWS and CLSW. But as one contributor said, “some bird just cannot be identified!”
Gary
Thanks Gary for going to all the trouble on this! NRWS makes a lot more sense, I could go with that. I could go with Bank too or leaving it unidentified. I think the hooded look makes it look like a Cliff but it has clean white undertail coverts and a notched tail. The notched tail can be explained away but the clean white undertail coverts can’t.
I have never noticed a Cliff with clean white undertail coverts before and neither apparently have the people who wrote all the field guides I own so it made me wonder. Having Cliff Swallows running around looking like that would make my whole faith in humanity and science start declining and falling all over the place. Thanks Alistair for another thought provoking photo and blog!