Crag Martin
The Crag Martin is a small passerine bird in the hirundine (swallow and martin) family with ash-brown upperparts and paler underparts and with a broader body, wings and tail than any other European swallow. The tail is short and square with white patches near the tips of all but the central and outermost pairs of feathers. The underwing and undertail coverts are blackish, the eyes are brown, the small bill is mainly black and the legs are brownish-pink. The Crag Martin can be distinguished from the Sand Martin by its larger size, the white patches on the tail and its lack of a brown breast band.
The Crag Martin's flight appears relatively slow for a hirundine. Rapid wing beats are interspersed with flat-winged glides and its long flexible primaries give it the agility to manoeuvre near cliff faces.
The Crag Martin breeds in mountains from Iberia and north west Africa through southern Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas to south west and north east China. Northern populations are migratory with European birds wintering in north Africa, Senegal, Ethiopia and the Nile Valley and Asian breeders going to south China, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. Some European birds stay north of the Mediterranean and just move to lower ground after breeding.
The Crag Martin is a rare species any distance north of its breeding areas with, for example, very few records in the UK.
The Crag Martin breeds on dry, warm and sheltered cliffs in mountainous areas with crags and gorges, building a nest adherent to the rock under a cliff overhang or increasingly on to a man-made structure. Nests are often solitary although a few pairs may breed relativity close together at good locations.
Date: 28th April 2012
Location: bridge over the Rio Almonte, Extremadura, Spain
The Crag Martin's flight appears relatively slow for a hirundine. Rapid wing beats are interspersed with flat-winged glides and its long flexible primaries give it the agility to manoeuvre near cliff faces.
The Crag Martin breeds in mountains from Iberia and north west Africa through southern Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas to south west and north east China. Northern populations are migratory with European birds wintering in north Africa, Senegal, Ethiopia and the Nile Valley and Asian breeders going to south China, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. Some European birds stay north of the Mediterranean and just move to lower ground after breeding.
The Crag Martin is a rare species any distance north of its breeding areas with, for example, very few records in the UK.
The Crag Martin breeds on dry, warm and sheltered cliffs in mountainous areas with crags and gorges, building a nest adherent to the rock under a cliff overhang or increasingly on to a man-made structure. Nests are often solitary although a few pairs may breed relativity close together at good locations.
Date: 28th April 2012
Location: bridge over the Rio Almonte, Extremadura, Spain
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Also in: South and west Spain - April and May 2012
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