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Barn Swallow | Hirundo rustica
Boerenzwaluw | Golondrina común
The Barn Swallow is the most widespread swallow in the world, recognised by its long tail streamers, dark blue upperparts and rufous throat. In the guide area it breeds in much of Mexico, often in and on buildings; elsewhere it is mainly an abundant passage migrant and winter visitor, moving over open country in large flocks in spring and autumn.
Voice
A fast, twittering song with grating and rattling elements; the call is a sharp vit or vit-vit, and the alarm a higher, urgent cheep.
Recording: João Ferreira Tomás — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–15 cm excluding the long outer tail feathers, which in adults extend the body by several centimetres; including the streamers up to about 19 cm. Upperparts glossy dark steel blue. Forehead and throat rufous, bordered by a narrow dark blue breast band. Underparts in American birds pale orange-buff to cinnamon, sometimes paler. The deeply forked tail has a row of white spots, visible when the tail is spread. The female has shorter streamers and is usually paler below; young birds are duller, with a pale throat and short streamers.
Confusion species
American Cliff Swallow Petrochelidon pyrrhonota and Cave Swallow Petrochelidon fulva have a square tail and a pale, orange-buff rump. Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor has pure white underparts and an only slightly forked tail. Short-tailed young Barn Swallows can resemble a Cliff Swallow but lack the pale rump.
Habitat
Open country of all kinds: villages and farms, fields and pastures, marshes, lakes, coastal lagoons and grassland, from sea level high into the mountains. It hunts flying insects low down. It builds an open cup of mud and straw against beams and walls in stables, barns, under bridges and eaves. Outside the breeding season it roosts communally in reedbeds or sugarcane.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds in northern and central Mexico, locally further south. Passage migrant and winter visitor in almost the whole guide area, most numerous along the coasts and in the lowlands. Also breeds across much of North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa; American birds winter south to southern South America.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Mexico in summer seen at almost every farm and village. In spring and autumn thousands of Barn Swallows a day sometimes pass along the coasts of Central America, often with American Cliff Swallows and Bank Swallows.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Very numerous and widespread, although the North American breeding population has declined since the 1970s. Possible causes include the decline of flying insects and the loss of suitable buildings for nesting.
Scientific name
Hirundo rustica | Linnaeus, 1758
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Hirundo in that same work. Hirundo is the ordinary Latin word for 'swallow'. rustica is Latin for 'of the countryside', after the farms and barns in which the bird nests. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sweden.