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An intercontinental migrant, almost entire world population wintering in Africa S of Sahara. In autumn has occurred in great abundance in Algeria and Morocco, though only small numbers winter in W Africa; strong passage up Nile Valley and on W coast of Red Sea, also across Ethiopia, and in Oct-Dec through E Africa, especially Rift Valley; weak passage through Arabia. Winters mainly in E & SW Africa in Kenya, Tanzania, NE Botswana and E Namibia; present in Oct-Apr/May in S Africa, where prone to flock, evidently still moving S in Nov-Dec, and seen in SW Cape Province only in Dec-Feb. Congregates in E Tanzania from late Mar, and in early Apr up to hundreds of thousands travel in N in narrow corridor along E coastal lowlands to NE Somalia, in one of continent's most spectacularly visible migrations, with thousands passing over a given locality in a few hours, e.g. 40,000-50,000 at Balad, Somalia, on single day in Apr; in Somalia, migrants fly 300-500 m above land, evenly spaced in column several Km wide, at ground speed of c. 48km/h; also common to abundant in Ethiopia in Apr. From Somalia birds emigrate at Cape Gardafui, with flocks seen from light aircraft arriving on Dhofar plain in S Oman, after sea crossing of 600 km, and many then cross a further 600 km of desert to reach Persian Gulf; singletons and loose flocks of 10-30 birds frequent in Oman from Mid-Apr to mid-May, often flying by day on broad front N or NE, or NW on Batinah coast. Recoveries of ringed birds suggest that they travel the 10,000 km from E Europe to C Africa at c. 67 km/day, and return in spring 110 km/day.   (del Hoyo J, Elliott A, Sargatal J (eds), 2001)

• digitised by GROMS, after del Hoyo J A Elliott; J Sargatal (eds) (2001) - www.hbw.com,
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  (A digitised version of this map is published in GIS shape format on the GROMS CD).