Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



Bank Swallow 



(Clivicola riparia) Swallow family 



Called also: SAND MARTIN; SAND SWALLOW 



Length — 5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch shorter than the English 

 sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide 

 wing-spread. 



Male and Female — Grayish brown or clay-colored above. Upper 

 wings and tail darkest. Below, white, with brownish band 

 across chest. Tail, which is rounded and more nearly square 

 than the other swallows, is obscurely edged with white. 



Range — Throughout North America south of Hudson Bay. 



Migrations — April. October. Summer resident. 



Where a brook cuts its way through a sand bank to reach 

 the sea is an ideal nesting ground for a colony of sand martins. 

 The face of the high bank shows a number of clean, round holes 

 indiscriminately bored into the sand, as if the place had just 

 received a cannonading; but instead of war an atmosphere of 

 peace pervades the place in midsummer, when you are most 

 likely to visit it. Now that the young ones have flown from 

 their nests that your arm can barely reach through the tunnelled 

 sand or clay, there can be little harm in examining the feathers 

 dropped from gulls, ducks, and other water-birds with which the 

 grassy home is lined. 



The bank swallow's nest, like the kingfisher's, which it 

 resembles, is his home as well. There he rests when tired of fly- 

 ing about in pursuit of insect food. Perhaps a bird that has been 

 resting in one of the tunnels, startled by your innocent house- 

 breaking, will fly out across your face, near enough for you to 

 see how unlike the other swallows he is: smaller, plainer, and 

 with none of their glinting steel-blues and buffs about him. 

 With strong, swift flight he rejoins his fellows, wheeling, skim- 

 ming, darting through the air above you, and uttering his char- 

 acteristic " giggling twitter," that is one of the cheeriest noises 

 heard along the beach. In early October vast numbers of these 

 swallows may be seen in loose flocks along the Jersey coast, 

 slowly making their way South. Clouds of them miles in extent 

 are recorded. 



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