Common house martin

Introduction: Common house martins (Delichon urbicum) operate in a wide variety of habitats that cover grassland, savannah and agricultural areas. However, they are most common in open, hilly or mountainous regions, resting in trees, wires and buildings, often with the barn swallow.

Distribution: Etosha National Park, Zambezi Region (formerly the Caprivi Strip) and scattered populations around the country less for Namib Desert and most of Namibian regions of the Kalahari Desert.

Diet: Takes caterpillars dangling on silk from branches. Eats mainly flying insects.

Description: Small swallow with characteristic densely feathered tarsi and toes. Blue-black forehead to back and upper tail coverts. White rump, blackish brown wings, snowy white underparts. White leggings down to toes. Delichon is an anagram of the Greek for 'a swallow', chelidon.

Breeding: Extralimital.

Size: 15cm.

Weight: 13g.