The Fairy Martin is a member of the swallow

Swallow

The swallows and martins are a group of passerine birds in the family Hirundinidae which are characterised by their adaptation to aerial feeding...

 family of passerine

Passerine

A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s which breeds in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It is migratory

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 wintering through most of Australia, with some birds reaching New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

 and Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. It is increasing a wanderer to New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, and may have bred. This species is frequently placed in the genus Hirundo as Hirundo ariel. It has no subspecies.

This is a bird of open country near water, and is usually seen near its nest sites in cliffs, culverts or bridges.

Description

The Fairy Martin is dumpy and square tailed. It averages 12 cm long and weighs 11 g. The adult has an iridescent blue back, brown wings and tail, a rufous crown and nape, and a whitish rump. The underparts are dull white. The sexes are similar, but young birds are duller and browner, with a paler forehead and pale fringes to the back and wing feathers.

This species can be distinguished from other Australian swallows by its pale rump. The most similar species, the Tree Martin

Tree Martin

The Tree Martin is a member of the swallow family of passerine birds. It breeds in Australia, mostly south of latitude 20°S, and in Timor. It is migratory wintering through most of Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia east of the Wallace Line and the Solomon Islands. It is a vagrant to New Zealand,...

, has a shallowly forked tail and blue-black head and nape.

The call of this vocal swallow is a chrrrr and the song is a high-pitched twitter. The vocalizations are higher pitched than those of the Tree Martin.

Behaviour

Fairy Martins breed from August through to January in colonies usually of a few tens of nests, but the largest known site had 700 nests. Nests are constructed in natural holes in dead trees, riverbanks, cliff faces or rock crevices, but increasingly in artificial sites on bridges, in culverts and pipes, and on buildings.

The nest is a retort or bottle shaped structure, made from up to 1000 mud pellets and lined with dried grasses and feathers. The bowl is about 15 cm in diameter, and the entrance tunnel is 5–30 cm long. The nests in a colony are clustered together. Both sexes build the nest and share incubation and care of the young.

The clutch is usually four, sometimes five, reddish-brown speckled white eggs, and this species is often double or triple brooded.

The Fairy Martin feeds high in the air on flying insects, usually in large flocks.
Fairy Martins have a slow fluttering flight and feed higher than Welcome Swallows. They will also feed on insect swarms low over water, and have been recorded feeding on injured moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

s on a newly-cut lawn. This species is highly gregarious and forms large flocks, often with Tree Martins.