Swallows and martins | Hirundinidae

Zwaluwen | Golondrinas y aviones | Schwalben | סנוניתיים | Hirondelles

Birds that take all their food in the air and are built entirely for it: long pointed wings, a very short flat bill with a large gape, and small weak feet on short legs, good for perching but hardly for walking. They drink and bathe by skimming low over water. The nest is a cup or closed flask of mud pellets against a wall, a self-dug tunnel in a steep bank, or a cavity — often in colonies. They are migrants that gather over reedbeds and wires in late summer; unlike the swifts they resemble in flight, these are ordinary songbirds that will settle on a wire.