Serangoon Tidal Gates 19-20Feb12

From KH on 19 Feb

Con, Danny and I missed the Rosy Starling and Streaked Weavers, but got a heavily moulted swift. This swift has been IDed by some as a Silver-rumped Spinetail. But see the following analysis by Danny:

I was among the group of birders/photographers on site last Sunday to witness the bird flypast. However, the more pictures I seen I am less convinced it was a spinetail. Below are my reasons, feel free to correct.

1) Head/neck: Refer pic by LTK show relatively round head with short neck; Spinetail has relatively smaller head with longish neck as in this.

2) Upperpart colour: Bird looks brownish instead of darkish blue. With the amount of lighting, the rump should look silvery white instead of pale colour

3) Underpart colour: Bird in Con Foley pics indicate pale instead of dark

4) Wing shape: Bird in both LTK and Con's link does not show the typical paddle wing shape, more like swiftlet

5) Overall shape: Spinetail looks like a cigar with two relatively long paddlewheel shaped wings with stretched neck /head and relatively longer taper shaped tail.

6) Flight pattern: I found the bird odd in way of flight especially when it tried to switch direction, simply it flew like a bat. Likely such flight due to loss of tail and trying to compensate by rapid and uneven wing flaps. Any video taken will be excellent.

The next question is "What could it be ?" I am unable to positively id the bird. My opinion is, it was a swiftlet sp. without a tail probably predated by sparrowhawk or hobby sp. From available pics did not notice any signs of body or wing molts.

Later in the evening, Danny, JS and I got the Rosy Starling at 5 something. The bird only appeared for a couple of minutes. I would have missed it if I were a few minutes late!

From Con on 20 Feb

The Rosy Starling appeared at 7:10 am this morning on the bare tree on the left of the road. After a couple of minutes it disappeared. Around 7:30 am it reappeared in about the same location as Kim Chuah’s photos on the sidewalk over the dam. It stayed there for about 10 minutes and then flew onto the roof of the barrage building. I didn’t try very hard for the Streaked Weaver since it is a resident bird I can try any time.

I went over to Sengkang hoping to get a lucky open shot of the Pallas’ Grasshopper Warbler. In fact he was taking a nice sun bath for several minutes but was totally blocked