EURING SWALLOW PROJECT

SWALLOW BANDING AND ROOSTING COUNTS
IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA

by Kiyoaki Ozaki

BIRD MIGRATION RESEARCH CENTER
YAMASHINA INSTITUTE FOR ORNITHOLOGY
E-mail: ozaki@yamashina.or.jp

In Japan, more than 150,000 Swallows were banded from 1961 to 1995. About 80 out of a total of 300 recoveries are obtained from foreign countries, like Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Malaysia (peninsula) and Russia. From this results we could estimate that Japanese swallows are wintering mainly in the Philippines.

Since the MAPS project (Migratory Animals Pathological Survey) by the US Army ended in 1960's, there have been only scanty banding activities in Southeast Asian countries. The Yamashina Institute for Ornithology started winter Swallow banding and roosting counts since 1990. So far we have carried on this project in Thailand (6 years), Indonesia (3 years) and Malaysia (in Sabah, 3 years). These activities allow us to offer an estimate the overall numbers of wintering swallows in those countries: Thailand has a total of 233,000 birds in 4 sites, Indonesia a total of 115,000 birds in 9 sites and Malaysia 335,000 birds in 7 sites. Hence the total number of counted roosting swallows is 683,000 in these three countries.

During the years we were able to band over 17,000 swallows. We could also control Japan ringed birds in Indonesia (Java) and Malaysia (Sabah), showing new and undescribed wintering sites.

Our Swallow banding and counting has also encouraged banding activities in the different countries, and in Thailand in particular, where a national banding scheme has been created issuing own rings.

Return to Contents Page