In our latitudes, the most numerous migratory bird is the barn swallow. This little beautiful bird is considered to be a symbol of spring. Since ancient times, people have tried to have nests of swallows under the roof of their house. According to legend, the swallow's nest brings peace, prosperity and wealth to the family. In addition, these birds are very useful for humans because they spend all day on those that destroy harmful insects. When in the spring near the nest that was empty during the winter, these nimble birds scurry around again, the house is a real holiday. Swallows are back - spring has come! And this is real joy!
The appearance of the swallows rustic
Where to look: in the summer all over Ireland. In the autumn, large populations gather in wetlands. Called several, including the swallow bank. Small swallows, with sharp narrow wings, short bills and small weak legs; some species have forked tails.
The plumage can be simple or marked metallic blue or green; floors look the same in most species. Swallows spend a lot of time in the air, capturing insects; They are one of the most mobile birds. For nesting, swallows can use a hole or crack in a tree, burrow into a sandy beach or gypsum mud on a wall or ledge to accommodate three to seven white, sometimes speckled eggs.
Barn Swallow: description
Interesting information. Swallow can be called one of the cutest migratory birds. The size of this herald of spring is quite small, its body length is 15–20 cm, the span of its long sharp wings is 30–35 cm. The small creation weighs only 18–20 g. It is easy to recognize the swallow by the long tail, which has a deep incision in the shape of a fork.
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Swallows are found all over the world, with the exception of the coldest regions and the most distant islands. Types of the temperate zone include distant migrants. Terns inhabit sea coasts and inland waters and almost all over the world are distributed. In America, this name refers to the purple martin and his four tropical relatives — 20 cm long, the largest American swallow. Trees are found from eastern India, Southeast Asia and the Philippines south to Australia and Tasmania.
They resemble wing-shaped swallows and feeding habits. Swallows are small birds with dark, glossy blue backs, red sips, pale lower parts and long tail streamers. They are extremely mobile in flight and spend most of their time on the wing. They are widespread tribal birds in the Northern Hemisphere, migrating south in winter.
The plumage of the bird is blue - black above, below - pale beige. On the forehead and front of the neck, the barn swallow has light spots with a brown tint. It is possible to distinguish a female from a male by the tail, in the “girl” it is slightly shorter than that of the “boy”. The color of the male is more saturated, the plumage of females is less contrasting.
Swallows are found in areas where there are ready and affordable stocks of small insects. They especially love open pasture with access to water and quiet farm buildings. Large reeds in late summer and early autumn can be good places to look for a fence with a pre-migration.
City Swallow: description
A number of small invertebrates. One of our most familiar birds in the countryside and a half-open country, this swallow is often seen skimming in the fields with a smooth, elegant flight. He seems to have accepted people as neighbors, usually placing his nest in barns or garages or under bridges or marinas; Indeed, it is now rare to find the Barn swallow's nest on a site that is not artificial. This species is also common in Europe and Asia, wintering to southern Africa and South America.
Habitat
The habitat of a small bird is quite large. Bird swallows are found in North Africa, North America, Europe and Asia. These lovely creatures winter in South America, Africa and Asia.
One can judge already by the very name of the bird that the swallow prefers to build its village nest in the countryside. You can see these swallow-shaped buildings on the walls of residential and business premises both in villages and in small towns. The birds feel much more comfortable in quieter places. Most often, their nests are observed in village stables or sheds, whereas on large farms these birds do not live.
Food is mainly captured and eaten in the air. Often feeds are quite low over water or fields. In bad weather they can sometimes eat on the ground. Young: both parents feed young. One or two additional birds, the offspring of a pair from previous broods, can visit the nest and sometimes feed the chicks.
Channels on a variety of flying insects, especially flies, beetles, wasps, wild bees, winged ants and real beetles. Also eats some moths, dragonflies, grasshoppers and other insects, as well as several spiders and snails. Only occasionally eat a few berries or seeds.
As mentioned earlier, people have long believed that the swallows bring happiness to the house, therefore, in order to attract these birds to their homestead, the owners arrange special wooden structures with corners suitable for nesting. It helps to keep a population of small and useful creatures.
Lifestyle
Barn Swallow is a diurnal. it migrantwhich arrives from wintering in the middle of May. Before the beginning of June, nimble feathered creatures are busy building nests; after settling housing problems, the birds immediately lay eggs and incubate. They fly off to warm countries in September.
What swallow feeds on
Courting is associated with air chases. On the perch, a pair of couples sits close to each other, touches the tickets, leans against each other feathers. Several pairs can nest in the same immediate area, but do not form dense colonies, like some swallows. Nest: the original natural objects were in protected crevices in the rocks or small caves. Sites used today, mostly in open buildings, under the eaves, under bridges or docks, or in similar places. The nest is a cup of dirt and dried grass, lined with feathers.
The village swallows live in large flocks, they love to sit in groups on the wires and loudly chirp. Their song ends with a pleasant trill. They are much more likely than other swallow species to sit on the ground. Birds nest in large colonies, each pair of birds jealously protects and defends the territory near its nest.
What they look like: a barn swallow is about six inches long and has blue wings and a head. It has an orange throat, forehead and orange chest and underside. Males and females look the same. 
Where they live: in all parts of North America. Sugar Swallow winters in the tropics to the south to Argentina. Barn Swallow also breeds in Northern Europe, Northeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Barn Swallow can be found in farmland, suburbs, swamps and lakes.
What swallow feeds on
The diet of this little creature consists mainly of flying insects. This menu includes mosquitoes, flies and butterflies. When it is cool or raining outside, the insects hide and the barn swallow changes flying insects for crawling spiders and caterpillars. Everyone knows that before the rain these birds fly very low over the water, but do we all know that they do this because in bad weather the insects living near the surface of the water begin to move actively, thus giving the birds an opportunity labor to get food. 
Caring for the Chicks
What they eat: barn swallow only eats bugs. Nest: pickled swallows often mate in the air. The nests are made of dirt and lined with grass and feathers. The cup-shaped nest is built under a rocky ledge or in rafters or eaves of buildings. Both parents take care of the young. Eggs take about two weeks to hatch, and chickens will fly when they are about three weeks old. During one summer, a woman can produce 2 groups of chickens.
Behavior: they travel by day, eat when they fly. They can even feed their young while they are in flight! They can travel up to 600 miles per day. This means that one day they can leave Seattle for Spokane. Swallows travel in large groups.
When hungry chicks squeak in the nest, a pair of swallows must work from morning to night to feed the voracious young. Birds - parents bring insects to their babies in their esophagus; during the day, five chicks will need about four hundred servings.
Breeding
Swallows build their nest from lumps of wet earth and clay, so that they are more firmly transferred with straw and hay. In shape, it resembles an open cup. Inside, the birds line their homes with feathers and soft grass. At the end of May, the female lays up to five eggs, in color they are white with purple or red specks. The male helps the nursery of the chicks to the future mother, but he replaces her only when she needs to eat. 
Photo courtesy of nature photos. Birds have a different visual system than humans. Especially when they hunt mosquitoes from the air, they have a decisive advantage that Wolfgang Fiedler from the Ornithological Institute in Radolfzell has pointed me to me. Although the swallows do not necessarily look sharper, their visual system has a strong temporal resolution. People can process about 20 frames per second, and birds - two or three times. Riding a bike, we do not see mosquitoes, because they rush past us so fast that we cannot consciously perceive them.
Chicks of the barn swallow are born from eggs after 14 to 18 days of incubation. Only three weeks, the parents should take care of their young, after which the young swallows fly out of the nest into an independent life. After the wires of the first brood, a pair of birds begins to prepare for the second brooding. If the year is warm, the swallows have time to release their young three times a season.
We only notice mosquitoes when they land in our eyes while cycling. Swallows, on the other hand, because their eyes can handle more photos, can detect small mosquitoes even when moving. There are other differences in the visual system. Thus, the birds can accommodate their two eyes in different ways, i.e. You can install them at different distances. This allows the left eye to focus on something closer than on the right. This accommodation is very fast. Another difference is color perception.
In our eyes, there are three different types of cones - in simple terms, some react to red light, others to green, and a third to blue-violet. Since we have these three types of cones, we can create any shade from a mixture of three primary colors — we can say that our color system has three dimensions. But birds have four, some even five types of cones, i.e. their color system has one or two dimensions more. This is a big difference, and the density of these cones is very high, especially in swallows.
Village and city swallows: interesting facts
A related species of barn swallow is City swallowThese are the most common varieties of these migratory birds. Many interesting facts are known about their lives: 
- The song of the swallow consists of ringing “viv - vit”, but when the birds notice the danger, they alarmingly signal to all members of the huge flock, warning about this with a loud “swing”.
- It happens that the chicks from the last brood do not have time to get stronger and are not able to fly along with the flock to warm countries with the onset of cold weather. In this case, the swallows - parents do not abandon their weak babies and remain with them until they can fly for the winter.
- While hibernating in Africa, the swallows feed on ants; this variety is very popular in the usual menu of flying insects.
- More recently, scientists have learned, thanks to the ringing of the swallows, that after a summer period in Central Europe, these birds are sent to winter in South Africa.
- During long flights to the warm edges of the swallow, unfortunately, often die from exhaustion and starvation.
- Barn Swallow is unable to live without singing. She sings when she searches for food in flight, sings when rocking, sits on wires and sings when she is just resting.
- When in ancient Rome, after the chariot races were announced, the hero took the first place, then the swallows were tied to the feet of the winner and the bird was released into the sky as a symbol of victory and free flight.
Little swallow twice a year makes a long flight from habitat to wintering and back. Their migration is a difficult and dangerous process. Very often due to bad weather conditions they die on this path in whole packs. Migratory bird with elongated wings and a long tail with a slit, most of life is spent floating in the air, very rarely dropping to the ground. Moreover, swallows eat, mate on the fly, and even sleep. Today, about 120 species of these birds are known and studied.
It depends, says Wolfgang Fiedler, but also on aviation technology. Swallows - especially agile animals that respond very quickly to visual stimuli - such. Then, first of all, the wind will force out the lower beak, and secondly, it will also change its aerodynamics. When the beak is closed, the swallow flies beautifully streamlined air; if it breaks it, it must rotate due to sudden air resistance. That is why she does not do this in this form; if it flies slowly.
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But if it pulls insects out of fast flight, then it comes from the bottom, with a slight slowdown downstream - or with an elegant movement from the bottom above, when the mosquito is only at the height of the belly. The entire nest is practically "down." Ant nests are perennial, such as the honey bee's nest. They put the activity down, and then do a kind of hibernation, for sure. Perhaps even more: winter is, of course, a problem only in our latitudes. There are many regions - and there ants dominate where there is no winter: for example, in the tropics and in the subtropics.
Representatives of the swallow family, living in almost all regions of the planet, with the exception of Antarctica and Australia, easily adapt to any conditions. The bird nesting places are often chosen by the eaves of buildings, mountain cliffs, stone caves, cozy corners under bridges, less often tree branches. Birds build their nest out of earth or clay, gluing them with saliva. The bottom of the nest swallow is lined with feathers and plant cloth. The female lays 3-7 eggs. Males and females do not differ much, except in less contrasting plumage in the female. Migratory Swallow attributed to the useful birds that eat a large number of insects.
Can birds see me? The distance is from 15 to 20 meters. Because there will be no tears without salt. Teariness is formed in the so-called lacrimal glands, which are located above the eye. To extract the liquid, they must get somewhere in the water. Since there is no "water supply" in the body, water can only come from the surrounding tissue. And to attract water, the lacrimal glands secrete salt.
What eat city swallows?
The demand for profiles has increased, and now you will find here several profiles about different domestic swallows. Swallows are among the songbirds. More information about individual swallows can be found at the end of the profile. Where do swallows breed and when? Here you will find an image for each swallow. Further domestic bird profiles are lower, bird profiles. With photos of chickens or portraits of birds. If you want to know this topic, the birds know something, and then go to my pages: what the birds and the fat crow know.
Photo: barn swallows build a nest.
Birds are different small size, have dense dark blue plumage with a beautiful metallic sheen. Traditional breeding grounds are North America, Asia, Europe, Africa, South China, Japan. The most famous species of swallows are the central regions of Africa. Here they number about 15 species. Swallows living in warm climates are sedentary.
Migrant Bird: YesAdditional profiles and information on swallows, swallows and birds diagrams. 
Migrant Bird: Yes Additional information under the swallow. Continue to use the pages of my topic, for example. Songs of birds or hawks in Hamburg.
Swallows in the picture.
My bird pages should help the viewer show that even birds have social behavior and live in a family. You can convince yourself on many pages figuratively. Wuhu about migration, social behavior Wushu, education of young sapens in nature. Protection of birds is important for maintaining the diversity of birds in nature.
Every citizen must contribute. High in the sky or flying low over freshly cut meadows, you can see the swallows chasing the summer months. When they nest and raise young birds, they look for our closeness to people. Barn Swallows begin to breed their first conclusion in early summer. If the young birds leave their nest, they will be fed for a few more days. Young sheds of swallows can be easily recognized by their not yet split tail, while their parents show typical long skewers.
In the European territory, urban swallows and village swallows are the most common. The first are distinguished by the fact that they attach their nests outside the buildings in close proximity to each other. Barn Swallows usually nest apart from their winged relatives inside outbuildings and houses.
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