Barn swallow

Description:

The Barn Swallow is a bird of open country which normally uses man-made structures to breed and consequently has spread with human expansion. It builds a cup nest from mud pellets in barns or similar structures and feeds on insects caught in flight. The adult male Barn Swallow of the nominate subspecies H. r. rustica is 17–19 cm (6.7–7.5 in) long including 2–7 cm (0.8–2.8 in) of elongated outer tail feathers. It has steel blue upperparts and a rufous forehead, chin and throat, which are separated from the off-white underparts by a broad dark blue breast band. The outer tail feathers are elongated, giving the distinctive deeply forked "swallow tail." There is a line of white spots across the outer end of the upper tail. The female is similar in appearance to the male, but the tail streamers are shorter, the blue of the upperparts and breast band is less glossy, and the underparts more pale. The juvenile is browner and has a paler rufous face and whiter underparts. It also lacks the long tail streamers of the adult

Habitat:

In this case, ruins near tropical rainforest.

Notes:

I was pleased to see that many swallows are nesting inside the ruins of Uxmal. My pics don´t have good quality since it was pitch dark inside the ruins and only the flash illuminated the swallows but is enough to show they are there, happily breeding. BTW, maybe this is why one of the places there is called Cuadrangulo de las Golondrinas (Swallow´s square)