kmatthew

22/8/2015
A single Swiftlet was observed today at around 5:00pm at Long Valley's rice paddies towards Yin Kong Village. It didn't stay long, only circled around briefly, drank some water and left in 2 minutes. May I apologies for the poor quality of photographs, feeling slightly rusty after some absent from birding...I did consider the possibility of Germain's Swiftlet due to the quite pale rump, but looking at photographs online didn't quite convinced me enough, so am going with Himalayan.

John Holmes

At least you've got some shots of it for the record.  According to "Swifts.." by Chantler and Driessens, Himalayan is greyer on the rump than Germain's.

But there must be so much individual variation, and the colours looking different in different conditions, I wouldn't dare call this anything other than Himalayan, either.