Actually, they have been here for many months, however, I hadn’t noticed them. They do return much later in the spring than the Barn Swallows and House Martins. We used to have these nesting in their “tunnel” nests here under one of the terrace roofs at the Quinta, however, at the end of last years breeding season the nest fell off.
They don’t normally like nesting around humans so it was no surprise that this year they decided not to rebuild. They normally build nests under cover in uninhabited structures such as bridges. They had built a nest at the Quinta the year before we moved in as it was not permanently occupied then.
This morning I took a photo of what I thought was Barn Swallows, but when I looked on returning home, I discovered these are indeed Red-rumped Swallows. They are larger than Barn Swallows and almost totally white underneath whereas a Barn Swallow has a rusty coloured chin. As the name suggests, the Red-rumped Swallow has a rusty coloured rump which is difficult to see in flight.
Here is a photo of one chasing a fly, which it did catch.
