The Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) is the most widespread species of swallow in the world. A distinctive passerine bird with blue upperparts, a long, deeply forked tail and curved, pointed wings, it is found in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Anglophone Europe it is just called the Swallow; in Northern Europe it is the only common species called a "swallow" rather than a "martin".
There are six subspecies of Barn Swallow, which breed across the Northern Hemisphere. Four are strongly migratory, and their wintering grounds cover much of the Southern Hemisphere as far south as central Argentina, the Cape Province of South Africa, and northern Australia. Its huge range means that the Barn Swallow is not endangered, although there may be local population declines due to specific threats, such as the construction of an international airport near Durban.
The Barn Swallow is a bird of open country which normally uses man-made structures to breed and consequently has spread with human expansion. It builds a cup nest from mud pellets in barns or similar structures and feeds on insects caught in flight. This species lives in close association with humans, and its insect-eating habits mean that it is tolerated by man; this acceptance was reinforced in the past by superstitions regarding the bird and its nest. There are frequent cultural references to the Barn Swallow in literary and religious works due to both its living in close proximity to humans and its conspicuous annual migration. The Barn Swallow is the national bird of Estonia.
The adult male Barn Swallow of the nominate subspecies H. r. rustica is 17–19 centimetres (6.7–7.5 in) long including 2–7 centimetres (0.8–2.8 in) of elongated outer tail feathers. It has a wingspan of 32–34.5 centimetres (12.6–13.6 in) and weighs 16–22 grams (0.56–0.78 oz). It has steel blue upperparts and a rufous forehead, chin and throat, which are separated from the off-white underparts by a broad dark blue breast band. The outer tail feathers are elongated, giving the distinctive deeply-forked "swallow tail." There is a line of white spots across the outer end of the upper tail.
The female is similar in appearance to the male, but the tail streamers are shorter, the blue of the upperparts and breast band is less glossy, and the underparts more pale. The juvenile is browner and has a paler rufous face and whiter underparts. It also lacks the long tail streamers of the adult.
The song of the Barn Swallow is a cheerful warble, often ending with su-seer with the second note higher than the first but falling in pitch. Calls include witt or witt-witt and a loud splee-plink when excited. The alarm calls include a sharp siflitt for predators like cats and a flitt-flitt for birds of prey like the Hobby. This species is fairly quiet on the wintering grounds.
The distinctive combination of a red face and blue breast band render the adult Barn Swallow easy to distinguish from the African Hirundo species and from the Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) with which its range overlaps in Australasia. In Africa the short tail streamers of the juvenile Barn Swallow invite confusion with juvenile Red-chested Swallow (Hirundo lucida), but the latter has a narrower breast band and more white in the tail.
The Barn Swallow was described by Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 as Hirundo rustica, characterised as H. rectricibus, exceptis duabus intermediis, macula alba notatîs. Hirundo is the Latin word for "swallow"; rusticus means "of the country." This species is the only one of that genus to have a range extending into the Americas, with the majority of Hirundo species being native to Africa. This genus of blue-backed swallows is sometimes called the "barn swallows."
The Oxford English Dictionary dates the English common name "barn swallow" to 1851, though an earlier instance of the collocation in an English-language context is in Gilbert White's popular book The Natural History of Selborne, originally published in 1789:
The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimnies , but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters... In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-swallow.
This suggests that the English name may be a calque on the Swedish term.
There are few taxonomic problems within the genus, but the Red-chested Swallow – a resident of West Africa, the Congo basin and Ethiopia – was formerly treated as a subspecies of Barn Swallow. The Red-chested Swallow is slightly smaller than its migratory relative, has a narrower blue breast-band, and the adult has shorter tail streamers. In flight, it also looks paler underneath than Barn Swallow.
Six subspecies of Barn Swallow are generally recognized. In eastern Asia, a number of additional or alternative forms have been proposed, including saturata by Robert Ridgway in 1883, kamtschatica by Benedykt Dybowski in 1883, and mandschurica by Wilhelm Meise in 1934. Given the uncertainties over the validity of these forms, this article follows the treatment of Turner and Rose.
Unexpectedly, DNA analyses show that Barn Swallows from North America colonised the Baikal region of Siberia, a dispersal direction opposite to that for most changes in distribution between North America and Eurasia.
The preferred habitat of the Barn Swallow is open country with low vegetation, such as pasture, meadows and farmland, preferably with nearby water. This swallow avoids heavily wooded or precipitous areas and densely built-up locations. The presence of accessible open structures such as barns, stables, or culverts to provide nesting sites, and exposed locations such as wires, roof ridges or bare branches for perching, are also important in the bird's selection of its breeding range.
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Vermont called healthiest state, Louisiana last - Reuters
Vermont called healthiest state, Louisiana last
That Happened!
Reuters -
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Louisiana has displaced Mississippi as the unhealthiest US state and other Southern states were close rivals due to high obesity and smoking rates in new rankings that deemed Vermont the healthiest.
Health Highlights: Dec. 3, 2008
Report: Vermont Is Healthiest State
