the martin can distinguish easily from the other swallows one at the white Bürzel and the white underside. it is more frequent than the smoke-swallow in big cities; one looks both types at the food-search around rivers, seas and about farms prowls, often also in assorted associations. All sorts of small insects, predominantly gnats and flies, are caught in the flight.
Zugverhalten Since the insects are missing with us in the winter, the martin is a migratory bird accordingly. it spends the winter in the tropical Africa.
Spread The Brutareale include them Alto Welt as far as into Scandinavia's north, to the south of until Asia Minor, northwest-India and southeast-China. In many areas, the martin broods in the same biotope as the smoke-swallow, however, a Kulturfolger is to much more inferior extent. In rocky and hilly areas, it occurs as far as to a height of 4500 m and penetrates far beyond the timberline with it.
Reproduction One usually finds the hemisphere-y nests in groups of little up to hundred. Clay and saliva turn into they at an overhanging rock-wall or at house-walls under a lead (rain gutter, balcony) densely side by side, never built an extension within buildings, however. The nest cuddles narrowly at the overhanging lead so that only the round approach-hole open-remains above. Both spouses build and pad the cave with feathers, dry grass-stalks and other plant-sharing indoors.
The brood-period begins middle of May in the south, in the north until end June. Until in the autumn in, 2 or 3 yearly-broods are reared. The 4-5 eggs are incubated by males and females in the change. After approximately 2 weeks, the dunigen nest-stools slip, the alto-birds bring the feed in the pharynx. Even if the squabs left the nest after 19-30 days, they must be looked after even further.
If the martins start its train in the autumn, its nests offer another welcome housing for sparrows. These don't handle it very carefully so that the swallows arriving in the spring usually position new nests, often directly beside the last year's one(s).
The nests of the martins stand strictly "clean under nature conservation, and who, as it happens in many places unfortunately, around the house-walls "keeps closed, the swallow-nests refuses, makes punishable.
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