Theeastern red-rumped swallow (Cecropis daurica) is a smallpasserine bird in the swallow familyHirundinidae. It is found in open, often hilly, areas with clearings and cultivation acrossSoutheast Asia to north-eastern India and Taiwan.
The eastern red-rumped swallow wasformally described in 1769 by the Finnish-Swedish clergyman, explorer and natural scientistErik Laxmann asHirundo daurica,[2] using a specimen from Mount Schlangen, nearZmeinogorsk, Russia.[3][4] It is now placed in the genusCecropis created by German scientistFriedrich Boie in 1826.[5] Boie's genus nameCecropis is from theAncient Greek for an Athenian woman.[6] The specificdaurica is derived fromDauria, a mountainous region to the east ofLake Baikal in Russia. The alternative genusHirundo is theLatin word for "swallow".[7] Some authorities consider theWest African swallow to be a subspecies of the red-rumped swallow.[8]
The subspeciesmayri,stanfordi,vernayi andstriolata were formerly treated as a separate species, the striated swallow (Cecropis striolata). The species were lumped together because the variation in strength of the underpart streaking isclinal with no significant difference betweenjaponica andmayri.[9]
The eastern red-rumped swallow is 19 cm long with a deeply forked tail. It has blue upperparts other than a reddish collar (sometimes absent) and streaked chestnut rump. The face and underparts are white with heavy dark streaking. The wings are brown. The sexes are alike but juveniles are duller and browner, with a paler rump and shorter outer tail feathers.
The population in mainland India,C. d. erythropygia, has the rump patch uniform dark chestnut without any dark shaft-streaks. The tail fork is shallow and the white patch on the inner web of the outer-tail feathers is indistinct.C. d. japonica breeds in eastern Asia and winters in Thailand, Burma, India and northern Australia. They are heavily streaked on the underside and have faint streaks on the rump. The population along the Himalayas,C. d. nipalensis, migrates to peninsular India in winter and breeds from Kulu in the west to Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh in the east. This population has the rump paler with dark shaft streaks.[10]
The eastern red-rumped swallow breeds from April to July alone or semi-colonially with scattered nests. The nest is a retort or bottle-shaped structure, made from mud pellets and lined with dried grasses and feathers. The clutch is usually four, sometimes five, white eggs. Both sexes build the nest, and share incubation and the care of the young.
Nests are constructed in natural caves, but very often in artificial sites on bridges, in culverts and on buildings.
The eastern red-rumped swallow feeds low over the ground or at cliff faces on flying insects. It has a slow buoyant flight compared to thebarn swallow. It will feed with other swallow species.
^Prior to the Dickinson paper, the type location had been listed as "the Sung-hua Chiang, Heilungkiang, China near its confluence with the Amur River" as, for example, in Turner (1989) pp. 201–204
^abGill, Frank; Donsker, David;Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2024)."Swallows".IOC World Bird List Version 14.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved5 October 2024.
^Ali, S.; Ripley, S. D. (1986).Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Vol. 5 (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 66–72.
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