Appearance:

Dark blue metallic upperparts, deep red forehead and throat and light underparts. Long tail-streamers in adults and deeply forked tail. Both the metallic blue and the deep red appears black at a distance. Combination of dark throat/breast and light underparts and vent is diagnostic, and distinguishes it both from Red-rumped Swallow and the smaller martins. Juveniles are less brightly coloured with a dull red throat, and short streamers.

Sound:

Characteristic calls and song. Contact call a short and sharp "weet" or "kee-weet". Song a sparkling, squeaky energetic improvisation with interspersed contact calls, often with diagnostic ending; an electric and drawn-out "su-eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr".

Song:

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:

A medium sized owl, which can give a very pale impression in flight. Quite similar to a Long-eared Owl with folded tufts, but differs in bright yellow eyes, darker wing-tips and heavily streaked breast in contrast to pale belly.

Sound:

Song: a series of 6-10 deep "ho"s evenly spaced. Much faster than long eared owl, and rising in pitch until the final "ho". Calls: a raspy, drawn, mewing "eeeeeeeeeah" (about 2 seconds), rising in pitch with accented ending.

Song:

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

CC-sound:Lauri Hallikainen, Licence,Link.