Swallows | Hirundinidae

Zwaluwen | Golondrinas y aviones

Insects are not taken from a perch but caught in long, banking sweeps low over water, pasture or road surface, often just behind grazing cattle or a mower that flushes the prey; unlike other aerial hunters, these birds do settle readily on wires and thin branches. There are three ways of nesting: a tunnel dug with bill and feet into a steep sandy bank, a cavity or nest box lined with feathers, and a cup or a closed, flask-shaped structure of mud pellets carried in one by one and plastered against a beam, bridge pier or rock overhang — sometimes hundreds of nests side by side. The voice is a liquid, chattering babble; one sharp alarm call brings a whole colony into the air at once. After fledging the young are fed on the wing for days, and towards migration large flocks gather in reed beds at dusk.