Rock martin
The rock martin is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in central and southern Africa. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns. The species is a solitary breeder, and is not gregarious, but small groups may breed close together in suitable locations.
About Rock martin in brief
The rock martin is a small passerine bird in the swallow family that is resident in central and southern Africa. It breeds mainly in the mountains, but also at lower altitudes, especially in rocky areas and around towns. It is 12–15 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. 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 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. The species is a solitary breeder, and is not gregarious, but small groups may breed close together in suitable locations. Because of its range of nearly 10 million km2 and large, apparently stable, population, it is not seen as vulnerable and is assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek ptuon, referring to the shape of the opened tail, and Procne, a mythological girl who was turned into a swallow.
The three Ptyonoprogne species are members of the swallowFamily and are placed in the subfamily Hirundininae, which comprises all swallows and martins except the very distinctive river martins. DNA sequence studies suggest that there are three major groupings within the Hirund ininae. The groups are the core martins including burrowing species like the sand martin, the nest-adopters, which are birds like the tree swallow that utilise natural cavities, and the mud nest builders, which construct open mud nests. The Hirundo species also build open nests, Delichon house martins have a closed nest and the Cecropis and Petrochelidon swallows have retort-like closed nests with tunnel entrances. The Pty onoprognes are the last group and belong to the last genus, Hirundo, which is normally considered to be a separate genus, normally the Hirundo. The former northern subspecies are now usually split as a separate species, the pale crag martin. The small birds are caught in flight by several fast, agile falcon species, such as hobbies, and it sometimes carries parasites, but it faces no major threats.
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This page is based on the article Rock martin published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
