Barn swallows are medium-sized songbirds and among the swallows they are widespread and found distributed in the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe and Americas. They are Passeriformes (perching birds) and have a deep forked tail, the outer tail feathers being longer than the inner ones. Sexual dimorphism is observed. Males have longer outer tail streamers than females and have darker chestnut colouration on their underparts.
These birds are aerial insectivores and have a fast agile flight to feed entirely on flying insects, mostly flies. They prefer various types of open habitats for foraging, including grassy fields, pastures, and various kinds of agricultural crops. They are diurnal migrants. It is reported that they breed in regions from the central and eastern Himalayas to Japan and Korea and winter across tropical Asia from India and Sri Lanka east to Indonesia and New Guinea; They are said to breed successfully in or near human settlements, nesting in and on artificial structures, including barns and other outbuildings, garages, houses, closely associated with human rural settlements; They do nest in caves, holes, crevices too. The average life span of these birds is four years. Loss of nesting, foraging habitats and exposure to pesticides are the major threats to these species.
Conservation status: Least Concern
References:
1. Brown CR, Brown MB. 1999. Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), the birds of North America online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.2. Godfrey WE. 1986. The birds of Canada. National Museum of Natural Sciences, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
3. Moller AP. 1994. Sexual selection and the barn swallow. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.
4. Scordato ESC, Safran RJ. 2014. Geographic variation in sexual selection and implications for speciation in the barn swallow. Avian Research 5: 8.
5. Snow D, Perrins CM. 1998. The birds of the Western Palearctic. Concise edition. Oxford University Press.
6. Turner AK, Rose C. 1989. Swallows & Martins: An identification guide and handbook. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
