Birds that love to fly in the rain

sorry I cant help, but you remind me this fantastic comedy, maybe Jack Black can give you some idea

The big year: 2011
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1053810/

I think they're swallows... and are feeding on insects that take to the air when it rains.

Do swallows have white underbelly?  At first I thought these birds have paler underbelly but when I looked at them today, they're black all over.

Also, according to many articles, including this from The Guardian:

" 'When the swallows fly high, the weather will be dry.'...   The swallows are not flying high to admire the view; instead they are chasing their next meal.  On fine summers' days, warm air rises upwards. Insects are also swept up in these bubbles of warmth, sometimes carried hundreds of metres aloft.  And, since swallows eat insects, they have to fly higher on fine days to find their food.  Conversely, during unsettled and cold weather, insects will seek the shelter of trees and buildings, so swallows have to swoop low to find them."

You're living in Vung Tau, aren't you, CruiseMonkey?  Do you see those birds out in drove in the rain?

Could be Swifts. There are 5-6 different species of Swifts in Vietnam.

"Swifts drink by catching raindrops in the air, or by flying low over water, skimming a mouthful from the surface".  - www.rspb.org.uk/
- YouTube

Thank you for the link, Senwl.  Probably not Swifts though. 

The article says swifts "avoid low pressure centres and other areas of bad weather. They fly into the wind in search of better weather and to get round an area of rain."  It's the opposite of these birds' preference.  They are happy in bad weather, and instead of getting around the rain, they revel in it and not just in light rain either.  The streets are empty in the rain, but the sky is filled with dozens, if not hundreds of those birds having a good time.  Most of them leave when the rain stops, but they all return with the next rain.  Since it has been raining daily (sometimes 3X a day), the birds show up like clockwork.

My husband thinks their wings may be shorter than in the photos, but we're not certain about that because they're so fast, watching them make us dizzy after a while.

Also, in the "Swifts of Vietnam", Vung Tau (or the surrounding area) isn't mentioned as one of the places where the birds can be observed.

Swifts and swallows have very distinctive outlines. They are raked wings and not much body. Google "swift swallow" and view Images.

Post photos!

Thanks, Gobot.  Raked wings they do not have so definitely not swifts and swallows then.

Photo of a huge group of birds flying in the rain?  I'll need a good tripod and a remote shutter release, both are left behind in the States (didn't have enough luggage allowance for the tripod anyway).

I am surprised that given your outgoing personality and native command of tiếng Việt you haven't simply asked your neighbors.  Even if they only knew a non-scientific name, it would probably give you a starting point.

I've asked.  No one knew.  They all looked at me strangely, 

This morning, the bánh cuốn lady asked me back:  "Which birds?"  "The ones flying over our heads."  "Those?  They're wild birds.  Why do you want to know their name?"

Now, I could've answered,  "Same reason you want to know how much we get for retirement."  But no, sarcasm doesn't sit well with Vietnamese, so I just shrugged and left for home.

BTW, it has been raining 5 times today so far, and the birds were out 4 times.  The present rainfall is happening in the dark and there are no birds, so they must be sleeping.

Ciambella wrote:

This morning, the bánh cuốn lady asked me back:  "Which birds?"  "The ones flying over our heads."  "Those?  They're wild birds.  Why do you want to know their name?"

Now, I could've answered,  "Same reason you want to know how much we get for retirement."  But no, sarcasm doesn't sit well with Vietnamese, so I just shrugged and left for home.

This is an interesting example of cultural differences.  You seem to have absorbed a more Western interest in facts for their own sake, while your neighbors are only interested in things that directly impact their own lives.  In a similar way, my wife dislikes national news in the US as "all talk" but watches local news every morning for the local traffic and weather reports.

THIGV wrote:

This is an interesting example of cultural differences.  You seem to have absorbed a more Western interest in facts for their own sake, while your neighbors are only interested in things that directly impact their own lives.  In a similar way, my wife dislikes national news in the US as "all talk" but watches local news every morning for the local traffic and weather reports.

In my case, that characteristic was not cultural but personal, and it was nurtured in childhood.  It might be natural or it might be not, but it was definitely enforced daily by my father and eldest brother.  Abstract concepts were taught, thirst for knowledge was encouraged, and questions were not allowed to go without answers. 

I still remember when father spent every evening of an entire week explaining to me why the crash of the airplane on which UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjold travelled wasn't an accident but a planned act, and how his death would vastly change the world in which our little country was a part.  The year was 1961, I hadn't yet to turn 9, and that's an example of our (every) evening conversations.  I didn't fully understand everything he said about Hammarskjold then, but I knew he wanted me to see the cause and effect of everything in life and never take anything at face value.

By the time we arrived in the States, I was already a full grown woman so Western culture didn't hold much of a role in the development of my characters, but father definitely did.

Well then, may I say that your father instilled an interest in fact based inquiry in you while you were still a child.  I think you would agree that this was not the general norm in Vietnam at that time.  Not being too inquisitive became even more important after 1975.  If you don't ask questions, you can't get in trouble.

emm.. sparrows ?

No, sparrows take shelter when it rains, not out celebrating the rain.

Can I have some of the same stuff you are smoking?

Ciambella wrote:

I hadn't yet turned 9, and that's an example of our (every) evening conversations.  I didn't fully understand everything he said about Hammarskjold then, but I knew he wanted me to see the cause and effect of everything in life and never take anything at face value.

An amazing dad in any culture to engage children in adult topics. I'm pretty sure if you were 9 now, you wouldn't have been "kept quiet" by being served continuous cartoons on the mobile phone. Like every child I see: here, US, Australia, everywhere probably. Sad.

[cranky old guy comment]

THIGV wrote:

I think you would agree that this was not the general norm in Vietnam at that time.  Not being too inquisitive became even more important after 1975.  If you don't ask questions, you can't get in trouble.

I didn't live here after '75 so I can't vow for that personally, but the topics of which father made me aware were freely discussed in public between the mid '50s and 'mid 70s when I grew up -- among men at neighbourhood coffee shops, corner barber chairs, and over chess boards.  There were months when parts of the newspapers were blacken out, and there were weeks in '63 when religious congregations were sort of banned, but generally, people spoke just about everything on the streets without looking over their shoulders.

When I was in college in the early '70s, eldest brother warned me to avoid certain groups of anarchist students on campuses, but he looked away when I participated in peaceful demonstrations including all-night sit-ins.  Nothing happened to me during and after those activities, but then again, I was far from being an activist so perhaps that's why no one paid attention to me.

Take a look at these links and see what you think:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc … ts/563687/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrel

The first article is about a bird in Chile but the genus seems to be worldwide.  The albatross is the largest member of the genus but there are several smaller species usually called storm petrels.

Some species are specific to Oceania and the Southern Hemisphere.  Although Vietnam is in the Northern Hemisphere, it seems likely that they may be from this group as the others are from Northern temperate and Arctic oceans.  This search has photos of storm petrels in Asia.  https://www.google.com/search?q=storm+p … mp;bih=589