As we all continue our wait for the raptor migration to pick up again, an opportunity to see a new 'swift' species has unfolded this week through a sighting by my friend Alexandre Guerreiro. Driving some 60km north of Sagres and lying to the east of Aljezur, we found ourselves in the small hamlet of Foz do Besteiro. This minor road runs through a long valley and, taking Alexandre's advice, we had no sooner left the car when Alpine Swifts and Crag Martins were seen overhead, flying the length of the valley. In next to no time, we saw among the flying birds - two White-rumped Swifts! These were new birds for Chris and myself. My only shot of the two swifts together:- The top bird above has a damaged feather on the left wing so subsequent photos can relate to a specific bird. With no Common Swifts around to compare, they appeared about the same size but are in fact, slightly smaller. Perhaps the most obvious difference at this angle is the deeply forked tail. The first twists of the birds revealed the small white patch on the rear which we had been expecting to see. Finding these rare swifts was absolutely magic. They appear very locally in parts of the Algarve and have an extremely small distribution globally, mainly in sub-saharan Africa. A feature which requires close observation in good light is the white chin patch. The patch appears much whiter than the throats on some other swift species. The Alpine Swifts of course were considerably larger and hurtling around the sky at great speed. A great day out in this quiet location and my thanks again to Alexandre for his directions.
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