« Multi-cultural dead end? | Main | Saved from the Apocalypse? »
November 18, 2004
An exotic visitor
A Madagascan Swallow sits on a nesting shelf installed by a restaurateur at a popular outdoor eatery in East London.
This brightly coloured swallow seldom visits the Northern Hemisphere; their home range is the Central African area, mainly East Africa and Madagascar. These are the swallows of my youth, and it always puzzled me as a boy why they weren't in the "Bird Books" my grandparents kept. It was only much later that I realised that these books were from the European and North American scene - and thus the Madagascan Swallow wasn't in them!
One swallow doesn't make a summer, and it is still Spring in SA, but the swallows are already building nests and some are feeding chicks. This fellow was visiting a nest a little further along the roof eaves and seemed to have a family to feed, already.
Posted by The Gray Monk at November 18, 2004 10:26 AM