Wire-tailed Swallow

The wire-tailed swallow is a small swallow 18 cm long, with bright blue upperparts, bright white underparts and a chestnut cap, named for the very long filamentous outermost tail feathers that trail behind like two wires. Immature birds lack tail wires and have dull brown, rather than chestnut, caps, and juveniles have a brown crown, back and tail (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is mainly resident, but populations in Pakistan and northern India migrate further south in winter. Fast flyers, the birds feed on insects, especially flies, while airborne. The neat half-bowl nests are lined with mud collected in the beak, and unlike many swallows the birds are solitary and territorial nesters. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a resident of non-specialised habitat with a Very Large range of about 1.56 million km² and stable trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).