Wildlife Watching Wednesday: Cliff Swallows Call Bridges Home
By: Tom Berg
Most of us have seen barn swallows flying around the countryside, but how many have seen a cliff swallow? The American cliff swallow is a member of the bird family that includes swallows and martins. These small, swift birds breed throughout much of the United States during the summer and migrate to South America during the winter. They are the famous swallows that “return to Capistrano” every spring at California’s Mission San Juan Capistrano.
Cliff swallows are slender, sparrow-sized birds with a square tail and sleek wings. They are somewhat brown in color overall and have a white belly. Their head is reddish-maroon with a bluish-black cap and a white forehead patch.
Cliff swallows nest in large colonies, using mud to build their nests. Both male and female cliff swallows bring mud “pellets” back to the nest construction site, and a typical nest is usually made of about 1,000 mud pellets. Although they originally nested along cliffs (hence the name), cliff swallows have quickly adapted to manmade structures like bridges and buildings.
Some cliff swallow nesting colonies are relatively small, with only a couple dozen nests under a small bridge. But other colonies can be huge, especially out west. There have been documented nest colonies around Cedar Point, Nebraska where there were as many as 6,000 cliff swallow nests!
These birds are usually seen near water, where roads and bridges cross rivers and the creek arms of reservoirs. These social birds can be found nesting under bridges crossing rivers all over the country – except in the southeast. Cliff swallows typically migrate through states like Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas (and others).
Cliff swallows eat huge numbers of insects every year, primarily flying bugs like flies, beetles, mayflies, wasps and others. They catch them on the wing and bring them back to the nest where hungry chicks are usually waiting. Cliff swallows may even catch a few mosquitoes, so be nice to them this summer!
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