The barn swallow, Estonia's national bird, has become rarer in Estonia in recent decades and the commemorative coin is intended to recall its symbolic importance for Estonia's traditional culture and nature. As a classic cultural follower, it lives in rural habitats close to humans. Living in permanent pair bonds, barn swallows build open, shell-shaped nests of mud clods and straw on a masonry ledge or beams on the wall in barns, stables or other open indoor spaces to raise their young. In earlier centuries, they often flew in and out through the openings in the gable, through which the smoke from the hearth fire also escaped - this is how they got the name barn swallows. As they are excellent flyers, a window in the tilted position is sufficient for them to leave the building. The nests are used again and again. There, the female lays four to five eggs two to three times a year, which she incubates for 14 to 17 days. Both parents feed the young birds for three weeks after hatching. Barn swallows hunt all kinds of flying insects. Between mid-September and mid-October, European barn swallows begin their migration to their wintering grounds in Central and South Africa, from where they return to their breeding grounds in Central Europe between the end of March and mid-May. |
