Scientific name:
Hirundinidae

Natural spread:
global occurrences

is the swallows widespread in 76 types world-wide and is missing only in the arctic areas, on New Zealand and on some oceanic islands. As typical insectivores, they behave in the areas with strong climate-fluctuations as migratory birds; nevertheless, they can survive shorter cold-periods well from the physical constitution. they only then start the train into the brood-areas, if the milder climate became generally accepted, and the food-offer is secured. Before the actual swarms arrive, already isolated birds are to be observed; the saying is valid for this: "A swallow doesn't do yet any summer."

Exactly in the European spread-area, brooding swallows joined narrowly here the settlement-areas so that its behaviors to strong extent found (smoke-swallow) entrance into the human world of thought.

Often, swallows are confused with the sailors, who form an independent order, however. Both groups are excellent planes, however, u differ. a. through the shorter and wider wings of the swallows. While the sailors only rarely rest, a silence-phase alternates with a flight-phase with the swallows regularly. Then, they sit Z. B. on telephone-wires, unloading poles or branches.

In Europe, the martin, the smoke-swallow and the shore-swallow, who also brood here, are well-known. The Rötelschwalbe (Cecropis daurica) and the rock-swallow (Ptyonoprogne rupestris) only brood in the most outer south.

Nistgewohnheiten Broadly, the opinion became generally accepted that the mask-swallows (type Phedina) - with a type (Ph). borbonica, on the Maskarenen and Madagascar, a second (Ph). brazzae, in the Congo-area represents - probably to the most original swallows belongs. While the kongolesische type nests in its myself-dug tunnels from sandbanks, the second mask-swallow sets its nest on pre-jumps of earth and rock-hillsides out of brushwood and grass. One tried to see a development-line in the Nistgewohnheiten. Going out from the open brushwood-nest, the swallows covered existing earth or tree-caves, in which only the Nistkammer is padded with grass-stalks. These types are mainly represented in the new world, under them the martin (Trachycineta bicolor) or the purple-swallow (Progne subis), that has joined the human being meanwhile long ago. Maybe the birds then learned first to dig its caves even, at least in the new world. The Erdhöhlenbrüter find on all continents we today, under them the shore-swallow.

The "potter-swallows" produced a second development-tendency, that its with mud and saliva hardened nests in rock-caves, at which rock-walls or after cultivation of the landscapes at buildings sticks. Be fitting Z into this group. B. the American cliff-swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota), the Australian martin (P). nigricans, and the species-richest swallow-type, Hirundo, to which also our world-wide widespread smoke-swallow (Hirundo rustica) belongs.