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By Mazhar Ali
‘BLACKNEST’ SWIFTLET
Size Sparrow-; length 14 cm (15 1/2 in).
Field Characters Very similar to, and practically indistinguishable from Himalayan Swiftlet. Slightly heavy build, proportionately broader wings, and less forked tail suggestive.
Hand Diagnosis. Tips of downy bases of mantle and rump feathers mainly black. Tail almost square: depth of fork 2-3 mm. Tarsus thickly feathered.
Status , Habitat, etc. Resident (?): eastern Bhutan and Arunachal Pardesh (?), between 2100 and 3900m.
Call: not recorded; utters the wooden rattle-like note for echo-location in dark caves.
WHITETHROATED SPINETAIL SWIFT
Size Bulbul +; stouter. Length 20 cm(8 in).
Field Characters A large blackish brown swift with long narrow pionted, bow-shaped wings and short tail. Underwing uniform blackish. Above, glossy black except middle of back which is pale whitish brown. Below, chin, throat and under tail-coverts white; rest dark brown with a whitish patch on each flank (subspecies nudipes). Sexes alike.
Hand Diagnosis. Webs of tail-feathers rounded at tips, the rigid shafts projecting as spines or needles beyond.
Status, Habitat, etc. Resident; rather uncommon and patchily distributed-normally between 1250 and 4000 m: neighbourhood of fissured crags and rock scarps. Reputed to be one our fastest flying birds. Keeps on the wings all day in loose parties or flocks, swishing at tremendous speed round contours and hawking over alpine pastures and river valleys, covering enormous distances in the day’s foraging. Roosts colonially in clefts and fissures (possibly also within hollow tree-trunks) clinging upright to the rough surfaces.
Food: flying insects, cheefly beetles, bugs, and ants.
Call: loud, shrill, lively ‘screams’ uttered on the wing while disporting themselves porior to retiring at dusk.
ALPINE SWIFT
Size Bulbul +; stouter. Length 22 cm(8 1/2 in).
Field Characters A large streamlined sooty brown swift with very long, narrow, bow-shaped wings. Underparts white, with a brown pectoral band across breast. Sexes alike.
Status, Habitat, etc. Resident (possibly largely a seasonal visitor to the higher altitudes); from planes levels up to 2500 m. Subject to considerable local migration and weather-dependent nomadism, in addition to far ranging daily foraging movements. Exceedingly fast on the wing. Has the characteristic habit of srifts of ‘balling’ up in the sky at sunset in a close-packed rabble, whirling, wheeling and tumbling playfully to the accompaniment of shrill, joyous screams before retiring to the communal roost in fissures of precipitous cliffs.
Food: winged insects hawked in the air.
Call: short, shrill, trmulous twittering screams uttered on the wing, as above.
