BROWN-BACKED NEEDLETAIL Hirundapus giganteus 褐背針尾雨燕
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
Typical needletail with long full body, long broad wings, short square tail and white horseshoe mark covering lower flanks and undertail coverts. Sexes alike. The spines projecting from the tail tip are more prominent than on the other two needletails that occur in HK.
Mar. 2012, Louis CHEUNG.
The black-brown upperparts have a pale brown saddle (silvery-grey on White-throated and White-vented). The throat is dark brown with a paler chin visible only at close range. The race indicus has a prominent white loral spot.
Mar. 2012, Louis CHEUNG.
OCCURRENCE
2012: one was photographed over Po Toi on 24 March (Cheung 2013).
This was also the first record for China.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Powerful flight typical of Hirundapus.
SYSTEMATICS & RANGE
Brown-backed Needletail occurs in the Oriental region. H. g. indicus, which is the taxon that has occurred in HK, is mainly resident in southwest India and Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, northeast India, Bangladesh and southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam); some individuals from the northern parts of the range move south in winter to the Thai-Malay Peninsula, probably to Borneo and possibly also Sumatra. H. g. giganteus is resident in the Malay Peninsula, the Greater Sundas and Palawan in the Philippines (Chantler and Boesman 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.
Chantler, P. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Brown-backed Needletail (Hirundapus giganteus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.brbnee1.01
Cheung, L. (2013). Brown-backed Needletail Hirundapus giganteus on Po Toi: the first HK record. Hong Kong Bird Report 2012: 222-225.
