Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 21:41:11 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mark Hoffman Subject: Re: Age of Cave Swallows Comments: cc: wilsoa02@med.nyu.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re. this issue, there is a great series of photos (and commentary) of a recent New York Cave Swallow, "suggesting an adult showing suspended primary molt" (contra West 1995) by Angus Wilson at: http://www.oceanwanderers.com/CaSwNY02.html Don't droll too much ... Happy Thanksgiving, Mark Hoffman Sykesville, MD Mhoff36100@aol.com In a message dated 11/28/02 11:44:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, glbrewer@COMCAST.NET writes: > Patty- Exciting news on the cave swallow, and thanks for the continued > information! I was curious about your statement that a juvenile bird should > be in flight feather molt at this time of year. My curiosity led me to see > what "The Birds of North America" series cave swallow account (No. 141, > 1995, by Steve West) says on this point, so here it is. For juveniles going > into their first basic (adult) plumage (pre-basic molt): "Molt begins on > breeding ground in Sep; generally completed in mid-Oct, probably before fall > migration." For adults, the molt (definitive prebasic) "Occurs mostly or > entirely on breeding ground prior to fall migration." Although the author > states that the sequence of feather molt is largely unknown, the molt of the > primary flight feathers begins before the molt of tail feathers. Most > detailed information in this account seems to be from the New Mexico > population, with some information from populations breeding in Texas. > > Thus, it sounds like we would not expect the first-year birds to be in > flight feather molt at this time of year. Any observations of molt would be > very useful for this species. > > Hope this helps- > > Gwen Brewer > Waldorf, MD > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================