Eurasian crag martin
crag martin
ptyonoprogne rupestris latin

The remaining birds are now identified as Eurasian Crag Martin.

The species differ in plumage shades and size, Eurasian Crag Martin being significantly larger than the others.

The white tail spots of the Eurasian Crag Martin are significantly larger than those of both its relatives.

The Eurasian Crag Martin may take aquatic species such as stoneflies, caddisflies and pond skaters.

The Eurasian Crag Martin builds a nest adherent to the rock under a cliff overhang or increasingly onto a man-made structure.

It is 15% smaller, paler and greyer than the Eurasian Crag Martin, and has smaller tail spots.

The calls are similar to those of the Eurasian Crag Martin and include a soft chi, chi contact call and a twittering song.

The under-tail coverts are of the same shade as the underside of the abdomen but these are darker in the Eurasian Crag Martin.

The Rock Martin's flight is slow, with rapid wing beats interspersed with flat-winged glides, and it is more acrobatic than the larger Eurasian Crag Martin.

The Eurasian Crag Martin or just Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris) is a small passerine bird in the swallow family.

The Eurasian Crag Martin feeds mainly on insects caught in its beak in flight, although it will occasionally take prey items off rocks, the ground, or a water surface.

Among the birds one can find the Eurasian Crag Martin and Peregrine Falcon that nest in the cliffs, as well as the Black Kite and Yellow-legged Gulls.

The Eurasian Crag Martin breeds from Iberia and northwesternmost Africa through southern Europe, the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas to southwestern and northeastern China.

With its very large range and high numbers, the Eurasian Crag Martin is not considered to be threatened, and it is classed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Its range does not overlap there with the Eurasian Crag Martin, which is found high in the Himalayas, but where both occur in Iran, the Pale Crag Martin favours more arid habitats.

Vertical surfaces are preferred for hunting, and a study of the Eurasian Crag Martin, which has a similar foraging technique, showed that cliff faces generate standing waves in the airflow which concentrate insects near vertical areas.

Its nearest relatives are the thrre other members of the genus, the Rock Martin P. fuligula, the Pale Crag Martin, P. obsoleta, and the Eurasian Crag Martin P. rupestris.

The Eurasian Crag Martin's choice of nest sites is very similar to that of Savi's Pipistrelle, Hypsugo savii; the bird and the bat often breed in the same locations and have almost identical ranges in Europe.

Where the ranges of Ptyonoprogne species overlap, the Eurasian Crag Martin is darker, browner and 15% larger than the Rock Martin, and larger and paler, particularly on its underparts, than the Dusky Crag Martin.

Northern populations of the Eurasian Crag Martin are migratory, with European birds wintering in north Africa, Senegal, Ethiopia and the Nile Valley, and Asian breeders going to southern China, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.

The Eurasian Crag Martin was formally described as Hirundo rupestris by Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1769 and was moved to the new genus Ptyonoprogne by German ornithologist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach in 1850.

This species can be distinguished from the Eurasian Crag Martin and Rock Martin by its darker underparts, and its white tail spots are significantly smaller than those of the Eurasian Crag Martin.

These resemble the grey-brown Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris) that is not rare in France.

The Eurasian Crag Martin or just Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris) is a small passerine bird in the swallow family.