Birds To Watch

American Cliff Swallow

- Peter Ryan

With the increase in the number of birders, new species have been added to the southern African bird list with surprising regularity over the past few years. A popular pastime among twitchers – often indulged in on long road trips to chase yet another vagrant – is to speculate what the next ‘mega’ to reach our shores will be. Another species to add to that list is the American CliffSwallow Petrochelidon pyrrhonota.

The 11 species of Petrochelidon swallows occur across the world, with five species in Africa, one in southern Asia, two in Australasia and three in the New World. In southern Africa we are familiar with the South African CliffSwallow P. spilodera, which breeds in colonies, mainly under bridges, in summer and migrates north to winter in central Africa.

The Red-throated CliffSwallow P.