First breeding record for the House Swift in the southern Moluccas

The known breeding range for the House Swift (Apus nipalensis) does not appear to encompass the Moluccas Islands (Coates & Bishop 1997, Chantler & Boesman 2013), except for the city of Ternate, North Maluku, where several birds and a possibly abandoned nest were recorded in May 2012 (van Balen et al. 2014). The species is a recent colonist in Wallacea, where it was first recorded in 1978 on Sulawesi, and has been expanding both in Sulawesi and the Lesser Sundas. In 2014, I recorded this species breeding, apparently for the first time, on the island of Buru, Maluku, Indonesia. On 24th September I saw around ten individuals along the Old Leharia Logging Road, while on 27th there were at least five individuals at a colony of at least six nests under the eaves of a wooden building in Namlea.

References

Chantler, P. & Boesman, P. (2013). House Swift (Apus nipalensis). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2013). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Coates, B.J. & Bishop, K.D. (1997). A Guide to the Birds of Wallacea: Sulawesi, The Moluccas and Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia. Dove Publications, Alderley, Queensland.

van Balen, B., Trainor, C. & Noske, R. (2014). Around the Archipelago. Kukila 17(2): 74–97.