There are many species of Woodswallow and they are all aerial specialists, small and fast-flying, catching their food on the wing with great skill and agility.
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Despite their name these birds are not swallows, although they exhibit some similar characteristics like the shape of their wings and the ability to soar, one of the few passerines (birds with four toes) that can.
Soar they do. They are larger than swallows and at this time of the year are visible over many of our wetlands, wheeling and turning and soaring in the air in pursuit of a meal of insects.
They are nomadic birds and partly migratory, coming south in the summer and returning north in the winter.
These Woodswallows are medium-sized birds with a dark grey head and neck, dark-blue upperparts, tail and wings.
They have a white breast (hence the name) and underwings, and a bluish bill.
They feed almost exclusively on insects caught on the wing and very rarely land on the ground. Large insects are swallowed whole.
I recently witnessed a Woodswallow catch a very large insect and land with it on a pole where it began dismembering it, while holding it down with a foot.
They are apparently able to complete this manoeuvre in flight, holding the insect in one foot while flying. Now that would be a sight worth witnessing!
White-breasted Woodswallows are often found in flocks of ten to fifty birds in eucalypt forests and woodlands close to water, and in mangroves.
They are sociable birds and will often huddle together along a wire or branch under sheltering foliage, making a delightful photographic opportunity.
They often launch from these perches, rapidly and gracefully flapping and gliding as they sally for flying insects.
Strangely they have a divided brush tipped tongue, like nectar-eating birds, but they rarely eat nectar.
Recent studies of DNA evidence suggest that Woodswallows, at some distant time, shared an evolutionary path with butcher birds and magpies.
Woodswallows build shallow bowl-shaped nests from grasses, roots and twigs, lined with soft grass.
The nest is placed in the fork of a tree, hollow stump, or inside the abandoned mud nest of a magpie-lark.
They are breeding now and are found at most wetlands around Maitland and throughout the Hunter Valley.
If you are very lucky you might find a row of young birds waiting noisily for their parents to return with food.