The fairy martin (''Petrochelidon ariel'') is a member of the

swallow The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...

family of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s which breeds in Australia. It is migratory wintering through most of Australia, with some birds reaching

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It is increasingly a wanderer to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

, where it may have bred. This species is frequently placed in the genus ''Hirundo'' as ''Hirundo ariel''. It is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

. This is a bird of open country near water, and is usually seen near its nest sites in cliffs, culverts or bridges.

Description

The fairy martin is dumpy and square tailed. It averages long and weighs . The adult has an iridescent blue back, brown wings and tail, a

rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish- red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a di ...

crown and nape, and a whitish rump. The underparts are dull white. The sexes are similar, but young birds are duller and browner, with a paler forehead and pale fringes to the back and wing feathers. This species can be distinguished from other Australian swallows by its pale rump. The most similar species, the tree martin, has a shallowly forked tail and blue-black head and nape. The call of this vocal swallow is a ''chrrrr'' and the song is a high-pitched twitter. The vocalizations are higher pitched than those of the tree martin.

Behaviour

Fairy martins breed from August through to January in colonies usually of a few tens of nests, but the largest known site had 700 nests. Nests are constructed in natural holes in dead trees, riverbanks, cliff faces or rock crevices, but increasingly in artificial sites on bridges, in culverts and pipes, and on buildings. The nest is a retort or bottle shaped structure, made from up to 1,000 mud pellets and lined with dried grasses and feathers. The bowl is about in diameter, and the entrance tunnel is long. The nests in a colony are clustered together. Both sexes build the nest and share incubation and care of the young. The clutch is usually four, sometimes five, reddish-brown speckled white eggs, and this species is often double or triple brooded. The fairy martin feeds high in the air on flying insects, usually in large flocks. Fairy martins have a slow fluttering flight and feed higher than welcome swallows. They will also feed on insect swarms low over water, and have been recorded feeding on injured

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

s on a newly cut lawn. This species is highly gregarious and forms large flocks, often with tree martins.

Ecology

When the mud nest is vacated after breeding, it may become occupied by several species of microbats. These opportunists include the wattle bats of genus ''Chalinolobus'' ('' Chalinolobus morio'', '' C. dwyeri'' and '' C. gouldii''), and the small long-eared bat '' Nyctophilus geoffroyi''.

References

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Birds in backyards
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2225257 Petrochelidon Birds of Australia Birds described in 1843 Articles containing video clips