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What type of bird is a blue swallow?
What does a blue-black swallow look like?
What does a tree swallow look like?
Do blue swallows have white feathers?
Handsome aerialists with deep-blue iridescent backs and clean white fronts, Tree Swallows are a familiar sight in summer fields and wetlands across northern North America. They chase after flying insects with acrobatic twists and turns, their steely blue-green feathers flashing in the sunlight.
- Meet The Swallow Bird Family
- Barn Swallow
- Cliff Swallow
- Cave Swallow
- Tree Swallow
- Violet-Green Swallow
- Bank Swallow and Rough-winged Swallow
- Purple Martin
An old saying goes, “One swallow doesn’t make a summer.” Fortunately, we don’t have to settle for just one species. During the summer, members of the swallow bird family are common all over North America—from the tropical borders to the chilly Arctic. Swallows are incredibly graceful songbirds, able to swoop and glide for hours as they chase small ...
Historically, orange and blue colored barn swallowsplaced their nests inside shallow caves or on cliff faces protected by overhanging rocks. They looked for spots sheltered from the rain because their nests are made mostly out of mud pellets, plastered in place and allowed to dry. When European settlers began building barns, these swallow birds qui...
The cliff swallow, true to its name, used to nest mainly on the sheltered sections of cliffs, with many jug-shaped mud nests plastered close together. Although some colonies still persist in natural sites, most cliff swallows now nest on the outsides of buildings or underneath bridges. These birds are found from Alaska to Mexico and from coast to c...
A related bird, the cave swallow, has a more limited range. As recently as 45 years ago, cave swallows were quite rare in the United States, nesting in a few caves in Texas and at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Sometime around 1980, these birds discovered that they could also build their nests inside highway culverts, which resembled...
Steel blue on the top and snowy white below, the tree swallow was named for its habit of building its nest inside the holes of trees. These types of natural cavities are becoming harder to find in many areas as dead trees and limbs are removed from yards and parks. But the tree swallow benefits from a happy coincidence—it uses exactly the same size...
The colorful violet-green swallow, another cavity nester, has a brighter mix of colors on the back and more white on the face. Unlike the tree swallow, which is found from coast to coast, the violet-green is a specialty of the Far West. Violet-green swallows often choose to nest in a hole made by a woodpecker. It also uses nest boxes that are desig...
Two more kinds of swallows nest in holes, but not holes in trees. Both the bank swallow and the northern rough-winged swallow are shades of brown. This color camouflages them against the dirt banks where they dig and place their nests. Do birds reuse their nests? Bank swallows are highly sociable, forming colonies where up to a thousand underground...
These birds are the largest swallows in North America, and arguably the most popular. Everywhere east of the Rockies in the United States and in southern Canada, homeowners put up elaborate multi-roomed houses, hoping to attract a colony of nesting purple martins. Early spring migrants, purple martins come back from their winter haunts in South Ame...
At a Glance. The popularity of the bluebird has been a boon to the Tree Swallow, which nests in holes of exactly the same size, and has taken advantage of bluebird houses over much of North America. In regions with no such ready supply of artificial nest sites, the swallows must compete with other cavity-nesting birds, arriving early in spring ...
- Tree Swallow. This common species is the default for comparison, so learn it very well. Clean white underside, with sharp contrast between the cheek and throat area.
- Northern Rough-winged Swallow. A generally brown swallow with not much contrast in its plumage. Brownish throat that does not contrast with the cheeks. Diffuse brownish wash on underside, particularly in the chest area, lacking any crisp markings.
- Bank Swallow. Another "brown" swallow, but pretty dainty (both in size and flight style) compared to our other swallows, and more contrast than Northern Rough-winged Swallow.
- Barn Swallow. Pretty common, at times quite numerous. Extremely distinctive shape. The silhouette alone is enough to identify this species. Underside of body can be orange or white.
The blue swallow (Hirundo atrocaerulea) is a small bird within the swallow family which is in the order Passeriformes. Swallows are somewhat similar in habits and appearance to other aerial insectivores, such as the martins (also a passerine) and the swifts (order Apodiformes).
Unmistakable blue-black swallow with incredibly long tail streamers. Can show small and irregular white patches on the body. Breeds in moist montane grassland. On migration and the wintering grounds, occurs more widely in open habitats including wetlands and cultivation. Rare and declining.
