Talk:Red Sea cliff swallow

Notes from Don Smith re: finding of Red Sea Swallow
I've moved the following here, from its former position at the foot of the article, as I believe it constitutes OR as presented.

"I was on Sanganeb, ringing birds with East African Natural History Society rings, when I found this bird, newly dead, on the roof of the Lighthouse. I was puzzled that I couldn't identify it because there are not many Western Palearctic swallows and I am familiar with them all. Consequently I took detailed photographs but, due to the high humidity and temperature I was unable to save the whole bird, only the wings and tail. These photographs, and the wings and tail, constitute the type specimen, now in the British Museum at Tring. During the two weeks on Sanganeb, large numbers of Barn Swallows and House Martins were passing through, flying north, but amongst them were occasional swallows with short tails and greyish rumps. I can only assume were other examples of H. perdita. However, the point cannot be over-emphasised that all these swallows were migrating north, into the Western Palearctic. Where can they go to breed? They haven't been seen at Eilat or the Gulf so they must fly straight across the Arabian desert to? Zagros Mountains or the Caucasus? Another possibility is that they stop in the mountains fringing the north-east border of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia.

I am indebted to Hilary Fry for his invaluable assistance in determining the taxonomy of this bird and in assuming primary authorship of the paper for Ibis, the journal of the British Ornithologist's Union. I am informed that Hirundo perdita has been re-classified as Petrochelidon perdita."

- Don Smith

MeegsC | Talk 14:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)