From Opus

Photo by Max Holdt
Photographed in Windhoek, Namibia.

Hirundo dimidiata

[edit] Identification

13-14 cm long. Blue upperparts and grey-white underparts, upper wings, underwing flight feathers and tail are black-blue; underwing coverts darker shade of grey-white.

[edit] Distribution

Southern Africa

[edit] Taxonomy

The northern subspecies, H. d. marwitzi is darker and smaller than nominate H. d dimidiata, but the differences are small, and the species may be monotypic.

[edit] Habitat

Dry scrub, farmland and clearings.

[edit] Behaviour

It builds a bowl-shaped mud nest with grass or hair and with a soft lining. It sometimes uses old nests of the Greater Striped Swallow, Hirundo cucullata.

2-3 pure white eggs are laid, and are incubated by the female for 16-17 days. Both parents feed the chicks. Fledging takes another 20-23 days,.

Its diet includes flying insects.

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