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Adult. Photo: Rick and Nora Bowers/Alamy
Petrochelidon fulva
Conservation status | Range has expanded and population has greatly increased in recent decades. |
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Family | Swallows |
Habitat | Semi-open country. Forages over any kind of open or semi-open terrain, especially near water. Breeding was formerly limited by scarcity of nest sites in natural caves or sinkholes. Now nests under bridges and in culverts, buildings, silos, many other artificial sites, allowing species to spread into new habitats. |
Forages almost entirely in flight. May forage low over water or may forage much higher, mainly in clear warm weather. Often forages in flocks.
3-4, sometimes 2-5. White, finely spotted with brown and purple. Incubation is probably by both parents, thought to be about 15 days. Young: Both parents bring food for nestlings. Young leave nest at about 20-26 days.
Both parents bring food for nestlings. Young leave nest at about 20-26 days.
Insects. Diet not known in detail, but feeds on a wide variety of flying insects, including beetles, flies, true bugs, wasps, bees, winged ants, grasshoppers, lacewings, moths, and others.
Typically nests in colonies, sometimes with hundreds of pairs. Nest: Natural site is on steep wall of cave or sinkhole, in area away from entrance but with at least some light. Artificial sites are on vertical surfaces in culverts, under bridges, or in buildings; in Yucatan Peninsula, may nest in ancient Mayan temples. In well-sheltered sites, nests may last for years and be used repeatedly. Nest (built by both sexes) is an open cup of mud plastered against wall. Birds in natural sites gather mud on cave bottom, where it often contains much bat guano. Nest is lined with grass, bark fibers, plant down, and feathers.
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
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