Other Names (World)
Tahiti Swallow, Pacific Swallow, House Swallow, Eastern Swallow, Coast Swallow, Eastern House Swallow (tahitica), Hill Swallow, Nilgiri House Swallow (domicola), Small House Swallow (javanica)
Habitat
Rocky and pebbly shorelines, tidepools, sandy shorelines, offshore islands. Also inland wetlands, subtropical and tropical lowland and montane moist forest, dry grassland, urban areas and arable land.
Pacific Swallow (Hirundo tahitica) [XC201751]
by Frank Lambert from Tioman Island, south of Juara Village, Malaysia (call, flight call)
Pacific Swallow (Hirundo tahitica) [XC193734]
by Frank Lambert from Kin, Okinawa, Japan (call)
Subspecies
Tahiti Swallow (Hirundo tahitica) and Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993), cross-regional species, are retained as separate species contra Turbott (1990) who includes neoxena as a subspecies of Tahiti Swallow (Hirundo tahitica). The BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group is aware that phylogenetic analyses have been published which have proposed generic rearrangements which may affect this species, but prefers to wait until work by other taxonomists reveals how these changes affect the entire groups involved.
Forms a superspecies with Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), Red-chested Swallow (Hirundo lucida), Angola Swallow (Hirundo angolensis), Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena), White-throated Swallow (Hirundo albigularis) and Ethiopian Swallow (Hirundo aethiopica). Sometimes treated as conspecific with Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena), but differs morphologically (especially in bill size and in tail structure and markings). Sometimes split into two species, based on eastern "nominate group" (also including ambiens and subfusca) and paler western "javanica group", but racial variation is clinal throughout; the groups meet in western Melanesia, where birds in New Britain (ambiens) are intermediate between the two, and individuals on Long I (in southern Bismarck Sea) appear intermediate between New Britain and northern New Guinea populations. Further, subspecies domicola has been considered a separate species by some, in part because of its geographical isolation from other subspecies and its greenish, rather than blue, gloss. Taxonomic status requires review. Subspecies frontalis not well differentiated, also has been thought to include individuals from Wallacea, but they probably belong with javanica; birds from Philippines and Borneo (and sometimes those west to Malay Peninsula and south to Sumatra) intergrade with latter, and generally indistinguishable from it, but sometimes treated as a separate subspecies abbotti (with which mallopega from northern Philippines synonymized).
The following 8 subspecies are recognised:
domicola Gmelin, 1789 - Southern India and Sri Lanka.
javanica Sparrman, 1789 - Southern India and Sri Lanka. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, House Swallow (Hirundo javanica).
namiyei (Stejneger, 1887) - Ryukyu Is (Nansei-shoto) and Taiwan.
frontalis Quoy & Gaimard, 1832 - Northern and western New Guinea.
albescens Schodde & Mason, IJ, 1999 - Southern and eastern New Guinea.
ambiens Mayr, 1934 - New Britain, in Bismarck Archipelago.
subfusca Gould, 1856 - New Ireland east through Solomons, New Caledonia and Vanuatu to Fiji and Tonga.
tahitica Gmelin, 1789 - Society Is (Moorea, Tahiti).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet