Red-Rumped Swallow
Cecropis daurica
Also known as: Eastern Red-Rumped Swallow
About This Species
Watch for fast, agile flight low over open ground, farmland, and villages, often near buildings, bridges, or cliffs where this swallow builds its distinctive enclosed mud nest with a tunnel entrance. It is a summer visitor across much of its range, arriving in spring to breed and departing for wintering grounds in autumn, so warm-season months are the time to look for active nests and hawking flocks over fields and water. Groups feeding low over grassland or wetland edges at dawn and dusk are a reliable sighting pattern.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- View nesting birds from a distance of several metres without touching or approaching the nest structure itself, since the enclosed mud nest is vulnerable to damage and abandonment if disturbed during building or while eggs or chicks are present.
- Nesting swallows and their nests receive legal protection in a number of countries across this species' breeding range, though the specific rules differ, so avoid removing or disturbing any active nest regardless of location.
- Feeding flocks over open ground are easily watched from a stationary position without approaching closely.
LCAvesPasseriformesHirundinidae
Seasonal Activity
465,934 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Hirundinidae
Photo
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.