From today's featured article Common house martin Delichon is a genus of birds in the swallow family containing four species named as house martins. These are chunky, bull-headed and short-tailed birds, blackish-blue above, with a white rump and white or grey underparts. They have feathering on their toes and tarsi. They breed in Europe, Asia and the mountains of North Africa. The common (example pictured), Siberian and Asian house martins all migrate south in winter, while the Nepal house martin is resident in the Himalayas. House martins nest in colonies on cliffs or buildings. Both parents build the lined mud nest, incubate the three or four white eggs of a typical clutch and feed the chicks. Aerial hunters of small insects, they may be caught by fast birds of prey and may carry fleas or other parasites. None of the species are considered threatened, although common house martin numbers have declined in parts of Europe due to poor weather, poisoning by pesticides and nest-site competition with house sparrows. (This article is part of a featured topic: Delichon.)
Recently featured:
Did you know ... Randell Cottage
|
In the news António Costa
On this dayJanuary 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968) .jpg) Doug Williams
More anniversaries:
|
From today's featured list
Utah has participated in 32 United States presidential elections since the state's admission to the Union in January 1896. In the 1896 presidential election, Utah was won by the Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan (pictured), who received almost 83 percent of the popular vote. In the subsequent four years, however, the Republican Party dominated Utah politics, which continued until the 1932 election. In the four-way race in the 1912 election, Utah was one of only two states won by incumbent president William Howard Taft. In the 1932 election, the Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt won Utah amid a national political landslide victory. Democrats maintained their popularity in Utah politics until the 1952 election, after which the Republican Party regained influence. In the 1992 election, Utah was one of the two states in which the independent candidate Ross Perot finished in second place, ahead of the Democrat Bill Clinton. As of 2020, the Republican Party has won Utah in 17 of the last 18 elections. (Full list...)
Today's featured picture
|
Duke Humfrey's Library is the oldest reading room in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. It is named after Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, a connoisseur of literature who donated his collection of 281 books to the university at his death in 1447. Books were hand-written at the time and his legacy was considered an extraordinarily generous donation, since the university previously had only 20 books. Duke Humfrey's Library was used as the library of Hogwarts for the filming of the Harry Potter films. Photograph credit: David Iliff
Recently featured:
|
Other areas of Wikipedia
- Community portal – Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
- Help desk – Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
- Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
- Site news – Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Teahouse – To ask your first basic questions about contributing to Wikipedia.
- Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.
Wikipedia's sister projects
Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
MediaWiki
Wiki software development -
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia project coordination -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Wikipedia languages
This Wikipedia is written in English. Many other Wikipedias are available; some of the largest are listed below.
-
1,000,000+ articles
-
250,000+ articles
-
50,000+ articles