In Memoriam: Len Blumin
White-winged Swallow - 1507
On our last day in Trinidad we stopped for lunch at a beach and got to see the White-winged Swallow, Tachycineta albiventer, on a wire along the street. This is a non-migratory species that resembles our Tree and Violet-green Swallow (same genus), but as you can see from this marginal photo the white on the wing makes the I.D. straightforward. They are non-migratory and are not gregarious like many swallows. The white wing patch is the dorsal surface of the inner wing feathers, i.e. the secondaries and tertials.
It's hard to research neotropical birds without an extended library, so I often use the internet. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology often provides great background information on our southern avifauna. Check out neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/ Just type in the common name of the bird of interest into the search field. Cool!
The referenced link provides some excellent information of the sometimes changing taxonomy. "Tachycineta" is a "swift mover" (Holloway). There are some 83 Swallows worldwide (family Hirundiniidae), nine species in the genus Tachycineta. White-winged Swallow has no subspecies.
White-winged Swallow - 1507
On our last day in Trinidad we stopped for lunch at a beach and got to see the White-winged Swallow, Tachycineta albiventer, on a wire along the street. This is a non-migratory species that resembles our Tree and Violet-green Swallow (same genus), but as you can see from this marginal photo the white on the wing makes the I.D. straightforward. They are non-migratory and are not gregarious like many swallows. The white wing patch is the dorsal surface of the inner wing feathers, i.e. the secondaries and tertials.
It's hard to research neotropical birds without an extended library, so I often use the internet. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology often provides great background information on our southern avifauna. Check out neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/portal/species/ Just type in the common name of the bird of interest into the search field. Cool!
The referenced link provides some excellent information of the sometimes changing taxonomy. "Tachycineta" is a "swift mover" (Holloway). There are some 83 Swallows worldwide (family Hirundiniidae), nine species in the genus Tachycineta. White-winged Swallow has no subspecies.