Common House Martin (Delichon urbica)

Common House Martin (Delichon urbicum)

The common house martin has significant ties to the nest of its birth. According to one study about 10% of the population returns for breeding to its place of birth. Another study shows that over 20% of the males return to the house of their birth in the following year, 3% to the very nest. Female birds seemed to be less inclined to do so, only 1 of 165 returned to the nest of its birth, eight to the building they were born at. The average distance between the new nest and the one they were born in is for female birds with 3 km (2 miles) about twice as great as for male birds with just 1.5 km (one mile), the area with 9 km² (3.5 square miles) about 4 times as large as that of their male counterparts (2.25 km² / 0.9 square miles).

The plumage of the common house martin is independent of the sex shiny dark blue on the back, and bright white or at least like flour on the underside. On the other hand the young birds are all darker on the underside and a flat brownish colour or black.

When feeding the young ones it is of utmost importance that the forage the parents have gathered is put right into the pharynx (the upper part of the throat) of the offspring because the young will not swallow anything that is just in their beaks.

My Flying Expertise *

You know that the Creator made us to be excellent fliers. Many ornithologists have even suggested that we spend the entire night in the air, since we don’t come back to our nests during the night. Actually, we do spend the largest part of our lives in the air. We zip from place to place like arrows. (...) In order to be able to adjust our flight speed to different situations, we have been given the ability to enlarge or reduce the load-bearing surfaces of our wings.

The Creator used a fabulous mechanism to further perfect the properties of our feathers. There are certain nerve paths in our skin near the roots of our feather quills. If the feathers are excessively loaded by the air stream, these nerves report the fact immediately to our brain. The brain, in turn, immediately gives orders for the individual position of the feathers to be altered. This all takes place in a fraction of a second. More than 1,200 tiny muscles are fastened to the roots of my feathers, to make the mechanism work. Can you still really believe that my feathers evolved from reptile scales?

 

The swallow continues its story: My Lungs

* quotes from the book "If Animals Could Talk"

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