The White-throated Needletail is a large (20 cm in length and approximately 115–120 g in weight) swift with a thickset, cigar-shaped body, stubby tail and long pointed wings. Sexes are alike, with no seasonal variation, and juveniles are separable with good visibility. The adults have a dark-olive head and neck, with an iridescent gloss on the crown; the mantle and the back are paler, greyish; and the upperwings are blackish, sometimes with a greenish gloss, with a contrasting white patch at the base of the trailing edge; the uppertail is black with a greenish gloss. The face is dark-olive with a narrow, white band across the forehead and lores and a white patch on the chin and throat. The underparts are generally dark-olive except for a U-shaped band across the rear flanks, the vent and the undertail coverts, and the undertail is black with a greenish gloss. The underwing is black brown with glossy grey-brown flight feathers. The bill is black, the eyes black-brown and the legs and feet are dark grey, sometimes with a pinkish tinge. Juveniles are generally similar to adults, but in good views can be separated by being generally duller, with little gloss to the plumage; the pale saddle is duller, contrasting less with the head, neck and uppertail; and the white band across the forehead and white patches on the upperwings and the vent and undertail coverts are all less prominent and duller. The White-throated Needletail is generally gregarious when in Australia, sometimes occurring in large flocks, comprising hundreds or thousands of birds, though they are occasionally seen singly, and occasionally occur in mixed flocks with other aerial insectivores, including Fork-tailed Swifts (Apus pacificus) and Fairy Martins (Hirundo ariel).
White-throated Needletail |
Hirundapus caudacutus
Status: Vulnerable on the EPBC Act list
Government evidence of impact of climate change:
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IUCN Red List Assessment, Hirundapus caudacutus
Whilst it is difficult to accurately predict future trends owing to the species’s extensive range and differing climatic and agricultural conditions in different regions; it is thought that populations in key parts of the range in Russia and Kazakhstan are unlikely to change dramatically in the near future.
This classification has taken place on the basis of improved knowledge of the species’s global extinction risk; as opposed to a genuine recovery to favourable conservation status across its range.
Monitoring since 2002 in 13 regions and republics in Russia (which holds the vast majority of the global population) indicates that numbers have remained stable or are even increasing (with some fluctuations due to extreme weather) (A.
Whilst it is difficult to accurately predict future trends owing to the species’s extensive range; and differing climatic and agricultural conditions in different regions; it is thought that populations in key parts of the range in Russia and Kazakhstan are unlikely to change dramatically in the The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Crex crex published in 2016. http dx.doi.org 10.2305 IUCN.UK.2016 3.RLTS.T22692543A86147127.en near future; although agricultural intensification and abandonment may drive some regional declines; and the species’s conservation status in much of the western part of its range remains unfavourable.
Trend Justification Ongoing monitoring since 2002 in Russia (which holds the vast majority of the global population) indicates that numbers have remained stable or are even increasing; with some fluctuations due to extreme weather (A.
Whilst it is difficult to accurately predict future trends owing to the species’s extensive range and differing climatic and agricultural conditions in different regions; it is thought that populations in key parts of the range in Russia and Kazakhstan are unlikely to change dramatically in the near future.