Martins or Swallows, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (1 Viewer)

[Deb335077]

Other than the barn swallow in the last image, can anyone confirm if these are Northern Rough Wing Swallows or Grey Breasted Martins

thanks you

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Grey-breasted Martins are a fair bit bigger than Barn Swallows, so I'd go Northern Rough-winged on last pic. I think the white-tipped dark undertail covts has some significance with separating Northern RWS from the sometimes split Ridgeway's RWS. Maybe someone can expand on this (and the range of Ridgeway's)?

 

[Peter C.]

Don't know about the races within the species, but I definitely concur with Norther R-w Swallow for these; Grey-breasted Martin is much darker in the throat (in the female) and more Purple Martin-ish (in the male).

 

[njlarsen]

Our Opus page says: Ridgway's Rough-winged Swallow shows black distal undertail coverts. I therefore think that the last image shows one of these.

Niels

 

[Microtus]

Howell & Webb don't show Ridgway's Rough-winged Swallow ranging west of very roughly Córdoba in Veracruz state. They also say "Range limits still need to be determined." The western edge of the mapped range seems to be over 500 miles to the east southeast of Puerto Vallarta.

 

[njlarsen]

Ebird shows the same thing. So either (1) the distal black UnderTailCoverts are not a good field mark, (2) the birds actually are overlooked, or (3) this is a rare occurrence outside of normal range. Which of the three?

Niels

 

[Microtus]

Any chance the wire could be casting a shadow on the coverts? Otherwise I'd go with #3.

 

[njlarsen]

It seems to me that everything seen below the wire is in shadow. If the wire caused this, I would expect a similar effect on the Barn Swallow.

Niels

 

[Larry Sweetland]

looks you you might have found something unusual here Deb :t:

 

[Nutcracker]

Definitely a dark plumage feature, not a shadow - wrong plave for a shadow, and too narrow for the wire's shadow.

The map in HBW shows NRWS as resident in lowland W Mexico north to roughly central Sinaloa, but (oddly!) doesn't mention which subspecies breeds there; IOC has S. s. psammochroa as the subspecies there.