Appearance:

Small martin with dark brown chest-band and white throat. Upperparts dark brown, underparts white. Underside of wings dark. Juveniles with light fringes to brown feathers, and buff throat. Flight more elegant than Barn Swallow and House Martin. Often changes direction but keeps altitude. More fluttering flight than House Martin, with less gliding.

Sound:

Contact call a mono- or disyllabic "trrrrt". Similar to House Martin but more raucous and less crisp, with less rolling r's, and with stable pitch throughout. Song a primitive improvisation on the contact call. Alarm call similar to House Martin; a sharp plaintive "tseep", but somewhat purer and more drawn.

Contact call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

Appearance:

Green upperparts and yellow underparts. Sides of bill yellowish, legs slate grey. Short yellow supercilium which connects to yellow lore. Long wings and relatively short tail. The flat crown and long bill gives it a different head profile from Sylvia warblers. Often raises crown feathers. Very similar to Melodious Warbler, but differs from this in pale wing-panel and longer wings. Folded wings reaches tip of under tail coverts, and primary projection is as long as tertials. Juveniles paler than adults, with whitish supercilium. The pale wing-panel extends to fringes of greater coverts in addition to secondaries. Alert and agile bird. Usually hidden in foliage, also when singing.

Sound:

Contact call distinct. A hard, trisyllabic "che-che-fink" , or "che-che-weet" with upward inflection. Song very virtuous and varied. Most similar to Marsh Warbler, but timbre and attack harder and more powerful. Tempo varied with many pauses, but includes longer, and more flowing sequences than Marsh Warbler. Song frequently interrupted by characteristic, nasal, high-pitched squeaks unlike Marsh Warbler. Master of mimicry. Imitations are often repeated several times before changing to melodious motifs or more "noisy" phrases.

Song:

Distribution:

Xeno-canto: map

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC