Here comes the BirdCast World Edition again! Here, we highlight a species with an extensive global distribution and focus on populations that winter in and migrate through southeast Asia: Barn Swallow!
Barn Swallow. Ting-Wei Hung/Macaulay Library. eBird S35935922.
A northward progression is evident in the eastern reaches of the region shown on the map. Let’s look a bit more closely at the eBird observations. The following three images show Barn Swallow observations in February, March, and April to date, 2017. Areas with purple represent locations with Barn Swallow observations, with darker colors representing more observations; areas with grayed blocks show areas where observations have been made but no Barn Swallows were not reported. And areas with no blocks have no data available.
Clearly, birds have been around the region, particularly in the southern reaches of southeast Asia, during the winter. But notice the arrivals now occurring in the east, in particular Taiwan, eastern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. And then compare that with what is to come, based on previous year’s eBird data for the March-May period.
Of course, none of these visuals is perfect, and there are many areas on these maps with few or no observations. So we need you to go out there and gather more data – fill in those blanks!
