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Articles

Vol. 51 No. 2 (2020)

HIRUNDO RUSTICA RUSTICA AT HERSCHEL ISLAND–QIKIQTARUK, YUKON— A BARN SWALLOW SUBSPECIES NEW TO CANADA

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21199/WB51.2.3
Submitted
September 14, 2025
Published
April 1, 2020

Abstract

 At least three of the 19 Barn Swallows recorded on Herschel Is- land–Qikiqtaruk, along the Arctic coast of the Yukon Territory, represent the white- bellied Old World subspecies Hirundo rustica rustica. Th birds were photographed on 3 July 2010, 24 July 2015, and 19–20 June 2019. Thse fist Canadian records are complemented by fie from northern Alaska, west to Utqiaġvik (Barrow). Ths subspecies breeds in Europe, Africa, and northwestern Asia, east to the Yenisei River. Th lack of Alaska records of H. r. rustica to the west of Utqiaġvik and of Canadian records east of Qikiqtaruk suggest that these vagrants reached the New World not by orienting or driftng at the wrong angle but by overshooting their normal spring migration path, following a nearly polar great-circle route.

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