Mouth shapes of insect-eating birds. Short feet and strong claws. There are 20 species in the world and 4 species in China, among which domestic swallow and Jin Yan are more common. Swallows are chestnut red in the front waist, with irregular horizontal bands in the back chest and milky white in the abdomen. Swallows usually breed from April to July. Domestic swallows nest under the eaves of farmhouses. This kind of nest is made of saliva bonded with soil and grass stalks, and it is covered with fine and soft materials.
Grass, feathers, rags, etc. And some Artemisia annua leaves. The bird's nest is dish-shaped. Breeding 2 nests every year, mostly from May to early June and from mid-June to early July. Each nest lays 4 ~ 6 eggs. The second nest is less, 2 ~ 5 pieces. Eggs are milky white. Males and females hatch eggs together. 14- 15 days, chicks hatch and parents eat together. The chicks fly out in about 20 days, and then feed them for 5 ~ 6 days, so they can feed themselves. The food is full of insects. The golden waist swallow is similar in shape to the domestic swallow, but slightly larger. This swallow has a chestnut waist, which is very eye-catching, and a small black line in the lower body, which is easy to distinguish from domestic swallows. Habits are similar to those of domestic swallows, but most of them live in mountain villages. Yan is a typical migratory bird. After the breeding, the young birds still follow the adult activities, gradually integrate into the large group, and move south for the winter before the first cold wave comes.
Identification features:
Distinguish the characteristic forehead, chestnut throat, invading the chest, the chest has an incomplete black horizontal band, the rest of the lower body is white without stripes, and the rest of the upper body is cyan black. Geographical distribution is resident birds.
Ecology:
Ecology is more common in air, buildings and electric wires near residential areas. Resist flying, foraging and nesting, and flying is often accompanied by "hissing". When looking for food, fly and open your mouth to welcome flying insects into your mouth. Feeding on small insects Breeding from March to August, the nest is built under the eaves or on the beams. It is made of soil mixed with straw and feathers into a half bowl with fine grass roots and feathers inside, and the male and female birds shrink into mud as nests.
Economic significance:
Mainly based on mosquitoes, flies and other insects as the staple food, it is a well-known beneficial bird, and there is a habit of protecting swallows in the mass era.
Swallows are birds that are beneficial to human beings. When the autumn wind is bleak and the leaves fall, swallows fly to the south in droves, and then fly back to the original place when the flowers bloom and the willows shoot in the next spring.
Yan will come back at this time every year. As early as thousands of years ago, people knew the law of swallows flying from autumn to spring. According to legend, in the Spring and Autumn Period, in order to explore the migration law of swallows, the ladies-in-waiting in Wu Palace cut off a swallow's paw to see if it would fly back to its original place the next year. Coincidentally, a man named Fu Xian in the Jin Dynasty also observed in this way. As a result, the next spring, the swallows without claws flew back. Swallows usually fly at night, especially when the wind is clear and the moon is bright. They fly fast and high, and rest on the ground for food during the day. Ancient poets once described the flying habits of swallows as follows: "In the past, Wang Xietang flew into the homes of ordinary people" and "there was nothing to do with the flowers, as if the swallows had returned." In agricultural production, the flight migration law of swallows is also regarded as a phenological phenomenon of agricultural activities.
In the autumn before winter, swallows always travel long distances every year-they fly from the north to the far south in droves, where they can enjoy warm sunshine and humid weather, and leave the frost and cold wind of winter to tits, grouse and Thunderbirds who never fly south for winter. On the surface, it is the cold winter in the north that makes swallows leave their hometown for the winter in the south, and then return to their hometown to have children and live and work in peace and contentment in the spring season. Is that really the case? Actually, it is not. It turns out that swallows feed on insects and have always been used to preying on flying insects in the air, but they are not good at searching for insect food in cracks in trees and ground. They can't omnivore berries and seeds like rubber grouse and Thunderbird, and they can't eat leaves in winter (conifers don't lose their leaves even in winter). But in winter in the north, there are no flying insects for swallows to prey on, and swallows can't dig the larvae, pupae and eggs of hidden insects such as woodpeckers and woodfinches. The lack of food makes swallows migrate from north to south every year in order to obtain a broader living space. Swallows have become "nomads" in the bird family.
Domestic swallows have a kind of "strange ringworm": they always move in the dead of night and the bright moon is in the sky, and they fly very fast. Sometimes I can only see my own shadow flash by, but I can't see it clearly.
Swallows also have amazing memories. No matter how far you fly, you can return to your hometown with amazing memories even though you are separated by thousands of waters in Qian Shan.
When the swallows returned to their hometown, the first "great event" was that the females and males built their own homes together, sometimes mending old nests and sometimes building new ones. Domestic swallows bring soil, grass stalks, feathers and so on. Use their mouths and mix their saliva. Not long after, a brand-new bowl-shaped nest appeared under your eaves.
Sometimes, the overbearing sparrow will take advantage of the situation and seize the comfortable nest of the domestic swallow, but the domestic swallow will not stop there. They will attack and blow the sparrows away. Sometimes, if the sparrows can't be driven away, the domestic swallows will "cruelly" take away the soil and branches, seal the nest and bury all the sparrows alive.
Swallows are very light and have a pair of narrow and long wings. When flying, it looks like two sharp sickles. When flying, it is like an arrow just leaving the string, and it is launched with a whoosh. It is an expert in insect catching. It can eat 250,000 insects in a few months. It must not be harmed!