Pacific Swallow

Pacific Swallow
: Animalia : Chordata : Aves : Passeriformes : Hirundinidae : Hirundo : tahitica
Binomial name
Hirundo tahitica Gmelin, 1789

The Pacific Swallow or Hill Swallow (Hirundo tahitica) is a small passerine bird in the swallow family.

It breeds in tropical southern Asia from southern India and Sri Lanka across to south east Asia and the islands of the south Pacific. It is resident apart from some local seasonal movements.

This bird is associated with coasts, but is increasingly spreading to forested uplands.

The neat cup-shaped nests are lined with mud collected in the swallows' beaks. They are placed under cliff ledges or on man-made structures such as buildings, bridges or tunnel. The clutch is two to three eggs, up to four in Sri Lanka.

Swallows are somewhat similar in habits and appearance to the other aerial insectivores, such as the related martins and the unrelated swifts (order Apodiformes). Pacific Swallows are fast flyers and they generally feed on insects, especially flies, while airborne.

This species is a small swallow at 13cm. It has a blue back with browner wings and tail, a red face and throat, and dusky underparts. It differs from Barn Swallow and the closely-related Welcome Swallow in its shorter and less forked tail.

Reference

• Birds of India by Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp, ISBN 0-691-04910-6
• Swallows and Martins by Turner and Rose ISBN 0-7470-3205-5