IDENTIFICATION

11-14 cm. Medium-sized swallow with dark blue upperparts, rufous forehead, ear coverts, throat and upper breast.

In flight has rather broad-based wings.

VOCALISATIONS

Varied in nature, as in Barn Swallow, but equivalent calls may be thinner and slightly higher-pitched.

OCCURRENCE

2016: one on 3 October (Tang et al. 2018, Tang 2018).

This was one of two Taiwan-breeding hirundines found in HK in the period 3-6 October 2016, a few days after Super Typhoon Meiji made landfall on the Fujian coast after tracking through Taiwan.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS

Occurs from the Andaman Islands east through coastal southeast Asia, Taiwan, Nansei Islands (Japan), New Guinea, Melanesia and Polynesia east to the Society Islands. Expansions have been documented in many parts of its range probably due to its being able to adapt to man-made structures (Limparungpatthanakij et al. 2020).

Polytypic with two of the subspecies potentially occurring in HK. H. t. javanica is the most widespread, occurring from southern Myanmar to southern Vietnam, Philippines and south to the Moluccas and Sundas. H. t. namiyei is restricted to the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan appears to be more likely to occur based on the circumstance of one HK record. Five other subspecies are recognised.

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend unknown.