The pale crag martin is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in northern Africa and in southwestern Asia east to Pakistan. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns.
About Pale crag martin in brief
The pale crag martin is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in northern Africa and in southwestern Asia east to Pakistan. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns. It is 12–13 cm long, with mainly brown plumage, paler-toned on the upper breast and underwing coverts, and with white windows on the spread tail in flight. The sexes are similar in appearance, but juveniles have pale fringes to the upperparts and flight feathers. The species is often a solitary breeder, but small groups may breed close together in suitable locations. The two or three eggs of a typical clutch are white with brown and grey blotches, and are incubated by both adults for 16–19 days prior to hatching. Both parents then feed the chicks. Fledging takes another 22–24 days, although the young birds will return to the nest to roost for a few days after the first flight. Because of its range of nearly 6 million km2 and a large and apparently increasing population, it is not seen as vulnerable and is assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The genus Ptyonoprogne is closely related to the larger swallow genus Hirundo, and is sometimes included within it since the nests of the Pty onoprognes resemble those of typical Hirundo species like the barn swallow.
However, a DNA analysis showed that if Hirundo is enlarged, it should include all the mud-builder genera, the Delichon house martins and the Petrochelidon martins. The pale crg martin was formerly often treated as the small, pale northern subspecies of the rock martin, but it is now usually considered to be a separate species in size and colour. The nearest relatives are the other members of the genus, dusky cragin P concolor of southern Asia, fuligula of southern Africa, the Eurasian cragmartin P rupestris P concilium of Southern Africa, and the Eurasian pulmonary crag martin Pulmonary. It was formerly thought to be the northern sub species of the rock martin of southern Africa, although it is smaller, paler, and whiter-throated than that species. This species is now considered a separate species and changes size and colour in size and changes the colour of its plumage in flight, and changes its call from a soft twitter to a softer twitter. It hunts along cliff faces for flying insects using a slow flight with much gliding. This martin builds a deep bowl nest on a sheltered horizontal surface, or a neat quarter-sphere against a vertical rock face or wall. The nest is constructed with mud pellets and lined with grass or feathers, and may be built on natural sites under cliff overhangs or on man-made structures.
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This page is based on the article Pale crag martin published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
