Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota) oc­cupy areas of North Amer­ica and Cen­tral Amer­ica based on whether it is breed­ing sea­son or the mi­gra­tion sea­son. The breed­ing range be­gins as far north­west as Alaska, and ex­tends south down the west­ern coast of the United States through Cal­i­for­nia into cen­tral Mex­ico (Mex­i­can plateau south to cen­tral Oax­aca). The breed­ing range ex­tends east­ward through the Rocky Moun­tains and mid­west sec­tions of Canada and the United States and stops in east­ern Texas. This range in­cludes parts of Ten­nessee, west­ern North Car­olina, Vir­ginia, and West Vir­ginia. The breed­ing range ex­tends back north­ward through the north­east­ern states of the United States north­ward into On­tario and Que­bec. The north­ern limit of the breed­ing range roughly ends where at the tree­line's edge (around el­e­va­tion 3050m), but colonies have been found fur­ther north.

The win­ter range ex­tends south along the west­ern coast of Mex­ico, to the boarder of Colom­bia and ex­tends north­ward along the east coast of Mex­ico. The mi­gra­tion range also ex­tends through­out the south­east­ern United States with colonies in Florida, Geor­gia, Al­abama, Mis­sis­sippi, Louisiana, east­ern Texas. They are also found through­out parts of Ten­nessee, Ken­tucky, South Car­olina, North Car­olina, and parts of Vir­ginia, West Vir­ginia, and Ohio. Cliff swal­lows also mi­grate south­ward into Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Ba­hamas. There have also been mul­ti­ple sight­ings of the birds mi­grat­ing into South Amer­ica, south through Paraguay, Ar­gentina, and Bo­livia mainly, but the def­i­nite range is un­known.

Va­grants of cliff swal­lows have also been found on Wrangel Is­land, Green­lad, Siberia, and the British Isles, but find­ings have been rare and few. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Brown, 2000a; Brown, 2010; Brown, et al., 2015a; BirdLife In­ter­na­tional, 2012; Mc­Nair, 2013; Sother­land, et al., 1980; Tum­li­son, 2009)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native
• palearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

Cliff swal­low breed­ing habi­tat in­cludes canyons, hills, val­leys, and cliff faces. Man-made build­ings and struc­tures also pro­vide shel­ter for nest­ing areas; any areas that have build­ings or bridges serve as pos­si­ble nest­ing sites, ex­pand­ing their breed­ing areas to grass­lands and towns. Any nest­ing areas with ac­cess to water/mud spots are ben­e­fi­cial, be­cause of the avail­abil­ity of food and nest­ing ma­te­ri­als. Nest­ing typ­i­cally takes place from sea level to 2770m, but can be as high as 3200 m.

Habi­tats dur­ing the win­ter in­clude coast­lines and other in­land bod­ies of water. Very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion is avail­able on the habi­tat of cliff swal­lows dur­ing mi­gra­tion. Cliff swal­lows may tar­get wa­ter­bod­ies while mi­grat­ing, as a source of in­sect prey.

Very lit­tle is known about their habi­tat dur­ing the win­ter, but cliff swal­lows are known to use grass­lands, agri­cul­tural areas, towns, and marshes. (Brown and Brown, 1995; Brown and Brown, 2000a)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• freshwater

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland
• forest

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams
• coastal

• Wetlands
• marsh

• Other Habitat Features
• suburban
• agricultural

• Range elevation

  0 to 3200 m

  0.00 to 10498.69 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Cliff swal­lows have square tails with an or­ange rump, and their throats have a chest­nut hue. Adults have chins, throats, and sides of the neck that are tipped with a chest­nut color. Their breasts are white or cream-col­ored. Some birds will have a cream or white tri­an­gu­lar-shaped fore­head patch, and a black or blue-ish crown. The birds' rumps can be pink. The bill of cliff swal­lows is black. The legs and feet are both brown in adults while ju­ve­niles are pink with a slight cin­na­mon hue.

The av­er­age mass of these birds ranges from 22.22 to 24.15 g. Length of cliff swal­low ranges from 127 to 152.4 mm, and wingspans range from 279.4 to 299.72 mm. They ex­hibit lit­tle sex­ual di­mor­phism, as the only dif­fer­ence is a larger dark blue patch on the throat of males.

Plumage for ju­ve­niles is duller than the plumage of adults. The col­ors on their throats and fore­heads vary con­sid­er­ably among in­di­vid­u­als of this age. Nestlings have a slight bit of yel­low, with brown irises.

Cliff swal­lows dif­fer mor­pho­log­i­cally from other North Amer­i­can swal­lows in that their heads and necks are thicker. Color pat­terns also dis­tin­guish these cliff swal­lows. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Brown, 2000b; Brown and Brown, 2011)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• male more colorful

• Range mass

  22.22 to 24.15 g

  0.78 to 0.85 oz

• Range length

  127 to 152.4 mm

  5.00 to 6.00 in

• Range wingspan

  279.4 to 299.72 mm

  11.00 to 11.80 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Birds are so­cially monog­a­mous and ge­net­i­cally polyg­a­mous. Cliff swal­lows will choose a mate with which to raise nestlings, but both the males and fe­males will mate with other birds.

Cliff swal­lows will began pair for­ma­tion when nest own­er­ship and build­ing starts. Males and fe­males both con­tribute to­wards build­ing the nest dur­ing the breed­ing pe­riod, but males may get a head-start and begin build­ing be­fore fe­males ar­rive for the sea­son. The nests are mud-based and have a domed shape, typ­i­cally 1.5-10 above the ground or water's sur­face. It's not un­com­mon for nests from the pre­vi­ous year to be re­fur­bished and reused by a new pair.

These birds gen­er­ally have an in­for­mal courtship based on the twit­ter-squeak song to find mates. No vi­sual dis­plays or ad­di­tional courtship ef­forts are part of courtship. Singing by males de­clines after eggs are laid and in­cu­ba­tion starts.

Cop­u­la­tion can start in un­fin­ished nests, as the pair works to­gether to com­plete it. Males use the "churr" call to start cop­u­la­tion and at­tract the fe­males to the back of the nests. Cop­u­la­tion may be at­tempted mul­ti­ple times by the males. One brood per sea­son is com­pleted. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Brown, 2000b; Brown, et al., 2015b; Brown, et al., 2015a)

• Mating System
• monogamous
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

The breed­ing sea­son lasts from mid-April until mid-June, and egg-lay­ing may begin be­fore nests are fin­ished. Lay­ing oc­curs in the morn­ings at or be­fore 0800, and one egg per day is laid. The range per brood is 1-6 eggs, and the av­er­age is 4. The pairs need to guard the nests be­cause con­specifics may in­vade and ei­ther brood par­a­sitize (lay eggs for other pairs to raise) or force­fully re­move eggs from the nest. If a nest com­pletely fails, the pair may at­tempt a sec­ond, smaller brood of about 3 eggs, on av­er­age.

In­cu­ba­tion starts within three days after the first egg is laid and will con­tinue until the last one is laid. The pe­riod of in­cu­ba­tion varies de­pend­ing on lat­i­tude (north­ern colonies take longer), but typ­i­cally is 13.5 days (range 10-19 days).

Hatch­lings will lack plumage at the time of hatch­ing and will have a mass of 1.6 to 2.2 g (av­er­age 2.0 g). It takes the young typ­i­cally 20-26 days (av­er­age 22 days) to fledge and be­come fully grown. The birds will be­come fully in­de­pen­dent and began trav­el­ing at around 6 weeks old (range 5-8 weeks). Sex­ual ma­tu­rity for fe­males is reached in 42 to 50 days (av­er­age 45), 40 to 48 days in males (av­er­age 43). (Brown and Brown, 1995; Brown and Brown, 2000b; Brown, et al., 2015b; Brown, et al., 2015a; Weaver and Brown, 2004)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Cliff swallows will breed once per breeding season.

• Breeding season

  Breeding occurs from mid-April to mid-June.

• Range eggs per season

  1 to 6

• Average eggs per season

  4

• Range time to hatching

  10 to 19 days

• Average time to hatching

  13.5 days

• Range fledging age

  20 to 26 days

• Average fledging age

  22 days

• Range time to independence

  5 to 8 weeks

• Average time to independence

  6 weeks

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  42 to 50 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  45 days

• Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  40 to 48 days

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  43 days

Par­ents are in­volved greatly be­fore the eggs hatch and gen­er­ally be­come less in­volved after fledg­ing. Males and fe­males both share the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of pro­tect­ing eggs dur­ing in­cu­ba­tion. They will in­cu­bate the eggs while the other sex is out of the nest. Nest-guard­ing is a nec­es­sary ac­tion, as other cliff swal­lows may at­tempt to add or re­move eggs from neigh­bor­ing nests,.

After hatch­ing, both sexes will pro­tect the young for 2-3 days. The par­ents gen­er­ally con­tinue to feed fledg­lings but start to lessen their in­vest­ment in pro­tect­ing them as fledg­ing con­tin­ues. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown, et al., 2015a; Weaver and Brown, 2004)

• Parental Investment
• pre-fertilization
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • male
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

The high­est recorded lifes­pan for a cliff swal­low was 11 years, as was ob­served from two birds in Ne­braska. There is nei­ther recorded av­er­age lifes­pan nor any in­for­ma­tion col­lected for cliff swal­lows in cap­tiv­ity. These birds typ­i­cally are not kept in cap­tiv­ity.

The prob­a­bil­ity of sur­vival of birds was recorded dur­ing their pe­ri­ods of growth. Cliff swal­lows have an an­nual prob­a­bil­ity of sur­vival of 0.17 dur­ing their first year of growth, Brown and Brown (1995). This prob­a­bil­ity in­creases in the fol­low­ing years, up to 0.57 an­nu­ally. There is no dif­fer­ence be­tween male pop­u­la­tions or fe­male pop­u­la­tions for sur­vival. But, there is yearly vari­a­tion in adult pop­u­la­tions rang­ing from 0.47-0.64. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown, et al., 2008; Brown, et al., 2015b)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  11 (high) years

Be­hav­ior

Cliff swal­lows hold the largest colony sizes among all species of swal­lows. Colony size can range from 200-3700 total nests in the area (Brown and Brown 1995). Soli­tary nest­ing is rare, and typ­i­cally oc­curs in close prox­im­ity to an­other large colony. These birds prac­tice brood par­a­sitism in their colony, lay­ing eggs in the nests of neigh­bors. This lessens the re­pro­duc­tive ef­fort for the layer and max­i­mizes re­pro­duc­tive out­put. This has the op­po­site ef­fect on the oc­cu­pants of the nest. When de­fend­ing nests, the birds will puff out feath­ers to ap­pear larger. The white patches on cliff swal­lows' fore­heads may be used as a dis­play of own­er­ship of a nest.

Cliff swal­lows fight when se­lect­ing nest­ing areas. Many nests are ex­ist­ing ones from pre­vi­ous years, so re­pair and restora­tion is all that's needed. Birds use both their beaks and wings to at­tack one an­other and fights can last up to 15 min­utes.

Not all cliff swal­low in­ter­ac­tions are neg­a­tive. These birds may play while perched on high wires. Birds will at­tempt to knock one an­other off the wire and take their spots on the wire. This type of play will hap­pen for a short pe­riod of time and then nor­mal perch­ing oc­curs again. Birds also will al­lo­preen (clean one an­other) on high sur­faces like pow­er­lines close to the colonies, in large groups. The birds on the outer perime­ter of preen­ing groups will spend most of the time watch­ing for preda­tors. Preen­ing gen­er­ally hap­pens in the mid-end of sum­mer dur­ing pe­ri­ods of sun­rise and sun­down. Al­lo­preen­ing birds also will at­tack one an­other for un­known causes.

Birds also will chase one an­other in spring which could be part of their mat­ing be­hav­iors, be­cause the twit­ter-squeak song is usu­ally ac­com­pa­ny­ing these chases.

Cliff swal­lows will sun­bathe by rolling to one side and ex­pos­ing the ma­jor­ity of their bod­ies to the sun­light. This mainly oc­curs when al­lo­preen­ing is tak­ing place. They gen­er­ally don't swim and ac­tual bathing is un­com­mon.

Cliff swal­lows are speedy, ef­fi­cient fliers. Flight al­ti­tudes range for birds from ground level to 60 m above ground. Flap speed will in­crease when mak­ing ma­neu­vers or climb­ing in al­ti­tude. The tail is also out­spread dur­ing turns. Cliff swal­lows will make these fast ma­neu­vers when chas­ing their prey and flare tails after catch­ing prey.

Mi­gra­tion takes place in late sum­mer, and birds will mi­grate south­ward into South Amer­ica along the coast­lines. Cliff swal­lows will re­main in large groups dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­sons. Birds may also be no­madic dur­ing the win­ter times. Cliff swal­lows then mi­grate back into North Amer­ica in early April. (Blake, 1948; ; Brown and Brown, 2002; Brown, 2010; Brown, et al., 2015b; John­son and Freed­berg, 2014; With­ers, 1977)

• Key Behaviors
• arboreal
• flies
• diurnal
• crepuscular
• motile
• migratory
• colonial

• Average territory size

  <1 m^2

Home Range

Colonies in the spring gen­er­ally range from 2-15 km for males and 9-14km for fe­males. For­ag­ing gen­er­ally hap­pens in a 1.5 km ra­dius around the colony. For­ag­ing out­side this area some­times hap­pens up to 6km out­side the re­gion.

Ter­ri­to­ries are re­stricted to the ac­tual nest site that pairs will de­fend in the breed­ing sea­son. These nests are mud domes, and pairs will at­tack neigh­bors who try to build nests within 8-12 cm from their nest open­ing. There­fore, ter­ri­tory sizes are neg­li­gi­ble. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Brown, 2002; Brown, 2010; Brown, et al., 2015b; John­son and Freed­berg, 2014)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Vo­cal­iza­tion is the main route of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for cliff swal­lows. Nestlings can vo­cal­ize at 5-6 days old. These swal­lows' vocal range con­sists of five main vocal calls. These are: beg­ging call, purr call (alarm), chur call (mul­ti­ple uses), twit­ter-squeak song (courtship and nest­ing), and squeak call (for­ag­ing). Males most likely only make the twit­ter-squeak call, but both sexes make the other four. Each bird has a dis­tinc­tive call that is dis­tin­guish­able by 15-18 days old, and, for ge­netic rea­sons, sib­lings ex­press sim­i­lar calls. The beg­ging call of youths be­comes the "chur" call once adult­hood is reached. Cliff swal­lows are also able to make their alarm call by week 6.

Vo­cal­iza­tion also varies by sea­sons. Vo­cal­iza­tion is at its low­est for these birds dur­ing the win­ter. There ap­pears to be no ef­fect on vo­cal­iza­tion due to time of day. How­ever, lo­ca­tion is in­flu­en­tial, as three of the calls (beg­ging, chur, twit­ter-squeak) occur only in­side the next.

The purr and chur calls are used dur­ing the nest­ing and breed­ing sea­son. The twit­ter-squeak call is mainly used in spring and de­clines once mates are found, but is used again in late sum­mer when de­fend­ing nests. The squeak call is used dur­ing breed­ing in mid­sum­mer. The beg­ging call is used pri­mar­ily from youth to par­ents for food and recog­ni­tion of the youth. Brown and Brown (1995) re­ported that cliff swal­lows in Wash­ing­ton will evict young that are not theirs from nests, while those in Ne­braska do not. Adult birds dis­tin­guish which young is theirs based on the beg­ging call. The purr call is used for when preda­tors are threat­en­ing. Though di­rected at the preda­tor, it may cause other colony mem­bers to come out of their nests in re­sponse. When the purr call is in the ab­sence of preda­tors, its goal may be to allow the caller to in­trude upon oth­ers' nests. The chur call ap­pears to have mul­ti­ple uses be­tween pairs, par­ents, off­spring, or nearby nests.

Vi­sion and tac­tile senses are im­por­tant in the colo­nial group, and they al­lo­preen, fly to avoid one an­other, and play peck­ing games on high­wires. Their sense of hear­ing also is im­por­tant, es­pe­cially for par­ents to rec­og­nize the calls of their young. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; John­son and Freed­berg, 2014; Weaver and Brown, 2004)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Cliff swal­lows' main source of food is fly­ing in­sects. It ap­pears that in­sects are taken op­por­tunis­ti­cally, with­out pref­er­ence for cer­tain or­ders or fam­i­lies. How­ever, cliff swal­lows' diets may in­clude more swarm­ing species than not, do to the na­ture of ef­fi­ciently con­sum­ing large vol­umes of in­sects.

Oc­ca­sional in­ges­tion of seeds and gravel has been re­ported, as these could help break up food dur­ing di­ges­tion. Dur­ing for­ag­ing, cliff swal­lows feed from 50m and above from ground level. Gen­eral for­ag­ing areas are grassy areas, but lakes, ponds, and rivers are also sources of food when the in­sect pop­u­la­tion is low in the area. Some pop­u­la­tions have in­di­vid­u­als that will for­age on the ground, con­sum­ing ter­res­trial in­ver­te­brates, like ants.

Cliff swal­lows are di­ur­nal for­agers and feed in groups of 2-1000 birds at times. They use the pres­ence of other in­sect eaters as a sig­nal of where to feed, then swarm the feed­ing area for in­sects. Ther­mals (up­ward wind cur­rents) also are lo­ca­tions where in­sects con­cen­trate, so the birds often tar­get these. Feed­ing is gen­er­ally in­tense be­fore the nest­ing sea­son and lasts all day long dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son. The birds will travel out of the colonies to feed in shorter but more fre­quent bursts dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Brown, 2002)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts

Pre­da­tion

Birds and snakes are the major preda­tors of cliff swal­lows. The birds and that are preda­tors of cliff swal­lows are sharp-shinned hawks (Ac­cip­iter stria­tus), Amer­i­can kestrels (Falco sparverius), barn owls (Tyto alba), great horned owls (Bubo vir­gini­anus), black-billed mag­pies (Pica pica), log­ger­head shrikes (La­nius lu­dovi­cianus), com­mon grack­les (Quisalus quis­cula), pere­grine fal­cons (Falco pere­gri­nus), prairie fal­cons (Falco mex­i­canus), and Mis­sis­sippi kites (Ic­tinia mis­sis­sip­pi­en­sis). The snakes that are preda­tors are bull snakes (Pituophis catenifer) and rat­tlesnakes (Cro­talus).

Amer­i­can minks (Neo­vi­son vison) and red im­ported fire ants (Solenop­sis in­victa) also can be preda­tors of these birds.

House spar­rows (Passer do­mes­ti­cus), acorn wood­peck­ers (Melan­er­pes formi­civorus), red-headed wood­peck­ers (Melan­er­pes ery­thro­cephalus), and deer mice (Per­omyscus man­ic­u­la­tus) will prey on eggs of cliff swal­lows.

The cliff swal­lows re­sponse to preda­tors is warn­ing other birds in the colony with the purr call. They will exit the colony, when fal­cons or hawks at­tack, in a mass flock to evade them. Preda­tors un­der­stand that they are de­tected when this oc­curs and will leave. Cliff swal­lows use the purr call for ground preda­tors as well.

Large colonies are a ben­e­fit to cliff swal­lows be­cause, with the larger size comes the ben­e­fit of de­tectabil­ity. More nests and colony size makes it eas­ier for the birds to de­tect in­com­ing preda­tors from the out­side. (Brown and Brown, 1995; Fajer, et al., 1987; Jones, 1883; Tum­li­son, 2009)

• Known Predators

  • American minks (Neovison vison)
  • Red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta)
  • Sharp-shinned hawks (Accipiter striatus)
  • American kestrels (Falco sparverius)
  • Barn owls (Tyto alba)
  • Great horned owls (Bubo virginianus)
  • Black-billed magpies (Pica pica)
  • Loggerhead shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus)
  • Common grackles (Quisalus quiscula)
  • Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus)
  • Prairie falcons (Falco mexicanus)
  • Mississippi kites (Ictinia mississippiensis)
  • Bull snakes (Pituophis catenifer)
  • Rattlesnakes (Crotalus)
  • House sparrows (Passer domesticus)
  • Deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus)
  • Acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus>>)
  • Red-headed woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Cliff swal­lows may spread plant seeds dur­ing nest­ing and mi­gra­tion. Birds will com­pete for nests with barn swal­lows (Hirundo rus­tica) and con­vert them to the cliff swal­low style nest. Cliff swal­lows are also brood par­a­sites within their colonies.

A study by Brown and Sethi (2002) also found that mos­quito abun­dance was pos­i­tively re­lated to colony size. The au­thors could find no weather con­nec­tions or Ju­lian date is­sues to in­flu­ence this trend, and hy­poth­e­sized that mos­quito species were drawn to the large mud colonies in some way.

The par­a­sites that af­fect cliff swal­lows range from cimi­cid bugs Oe­ci­a­cus vic­ar­ius, ticks, fleas, dipter­ans, der­mestid bee­tles, lice, mites, ne­ma­todes, ces­todes, trema­todes, acan­tho­cepha­lans, and pro­to­zoans.

The ec­topar­a­sitic ticks ob­served are: Ixodes baergi, Ixodes how­elli, Argas coo­leyi, Car­ios con­ca­nen­sis, Or­nithodoros turi­cata. Ec­toparas­tic fleas ob­served are: Cer­ato­phyl­lus cel­sus, Cer­ato­phyl­lus petroche­li­doni, Cer­ato­phyl­lus ar­cue­gens, Cer­ato­phyl­lus calder­woodi, Cer­ato­phyl­lus coahuilen­sis, Cer­ato­phyl­lus idius, Cer­ato­phyl­lus scop­u­lo­rum, and Hec­top­sylla psittaci. Dipter­ans, specif­i­cally blowflies, ob­served are: Pro­to­cal­liphora hirundo, Pro­to­cal­liphora asiovora, Pro­to­cal­liphora braueri, and Pro­to­cal­liphora sialia. Der­mestid bee­tles were ob­served af­fect­ing cliff swal­lows, but no spe­cific ge­nius or species has been listed. Feather lice ob­served are: Machaer­i­lae­mus malleus, Brueelia longa, Philopterus ex­cisus, and Mysidea dis­sim­ilis. Mites ob­served are: Der­manys­sus gal­li­nae, Der­manys­sus hirun­di­nis, Der­manys­sus triscu­ta­tus, Cheyle­tus, Or­nithocheyla, Hirstio­soma, Eu­tro­mibcula al­fre­du­ge­sia, Der­matophagoides evansi, Proc­to­phyl­lodes, and Ptilonys­sus echi­na­tus. Ne­ma­todes ob­served are: Had­jelia pyrrhonota, Acuaria, Mi­crote­trameres in­er­mis, Splen­did­ofi­laria, and Diplo­tri­aena. Ces­todes ob­served are: An­gu­larella audubo­nen­sis, An­gu­larella beema, Anon­chotae­nia glo­bata, Vitta mag­ni­un­ci­nata, Vitta parvi­rostris, Vitta ri­paria, and May­hewia aba­bili. Trema­todes seen are: Col­lyri­clum faba, Concin­num minor, Brachylecithum mar­in­ho­lutzi, Pla­giorchis mac­u­lo­sus, and Sto­my­lotrema gra­tio­sus. Acan­tho­cepha­lans in­clude: Mediorhynchus gran­dis and Mediorhynchus pa­pil­lo­sus. Pro­to­zoan blood par­a­sites that were also spot­ted in­clude: He­pa­to­zoon, Try­panosoma, Haemo­pro­teus, Leu­co­cy­to­zoon, and Isospara petroche­li­don. (Brown and Brown, 1995)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Like many other song­birds and other mi­gra­tory birds, cliff swal­lows con­tribute to­wards bird-watch­ing in many re­gions. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; Brown and Sethi, 2002)

• Positive Impacts
• ecotourism

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no re­ported neg­a­tive ef­fects of cliff swal­lows on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Cliff swal­lows are listed as species of "Least Con­cern" under The IUCN Red List and are pro­tected under the US Mi­gra­tory Bird Act. The US Mi­gra­tory Bird Act pro­hibits any hunt­ing of cliff swal­lows. This species, be­cause it's the edge of its range, is listed as "Threat­ened" in Penn­syl­va­nia and New Jer­sey. They are not listed on the CITES ap­pen­dices or on the US Fed­eral List.

Cliff swal­lows con­tract the Fort Mor­gan Virus, but it ap­pears to have no ad­verse ef­fects dur­ing the fledg­ing process. An­other un­known virus also af­fected mul­ti­ple birds in Ok­la­homa that also has no wit­nessed ef­fects on birds.

As a species that can ben­e­fit from human in­ter­ac­tion, cliff swal­low pop­u­la­tions have been re­port­edly in­creas­ing. Habi­tats for cliff swal­lows are en­hanced by man-made struc­tures such as bridges and build­ings as pos­si­ble nest­ing sites. Be­cause the birds are very tol­er­ant of human dis­tur­bance, human ex­pan­sion does not neg­a­tively im­pact cliff swal­lows.

There are state- and lo­cal­ity-based con­ser­va­tion ef­forts that have at­tempted to in­crease the pop­u­la­tion of cliff swal­lows in cer­tain areas. Ef­forts in­clude man-made nests being put up to at­tract cliff swal­lows to col­o­nize in cer­tain areas and help in­crease the cliff swal­low pop­u­la­tions in lo­cal­i­ties. Con­trol or elim­i­na­tion of com­pet­ing, in­va­sive house spar­rows Passer do­mes­ti­cus also has shown to have pos­i­tive im­pacts on cliff swal­lows. (Brown and Brown, 1995; ; BirdLife In­ter­na­tional, 2012)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Migratory Bird Act

  Protected

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Joshua Tulppo (au­thor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Alex At­wood (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Marisa Dameron (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Karen Pow­ers (ed­i­tor), Rad­ford Uni­ver­sity, Tanya Dewey (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Bent, I. 1942. A man­aged cliff swal­low colony in south­ern Wis­con­sin. Wil­son Bul­letin, 54: 153-161.

BirdLife In­ter­na­tional, 2012. "Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota" (On-line). The IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species 2012: e.T22712427A38672463. Ac­cessed Sep­tem­ber 15, 2016 at http://​dx.​doi.​org/​10.​2305/​IUCN.​UK.​2012-1.​RLTS.​T22712427A38672463.​en.

Blake, C. 1948. The flight of swal­lows. Auk, 65: 54-62.

Brown, C., M. Brown. 1996. Colo­nial­ity in the Cliff Swal­low: The Ef­fect of Group Size on So­cial Be­hav­ior. Chicago, Illi­nois: Uni­ver­sity of Chicago Press.

Brown, C., M. Brown. 2000. Weather-me­di­ated nat­ural se­lec­tion on ar­rival time in cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota). Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy and So­cio­bi­ol­ogy, 47/5: 339-345.

Brown, C. 2010. How cliff swal­lows choose where to live. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 90/1: 4-7.

Brown, C., M. Brown. 2002. Does in­ter­colony com­pe­ti­tion for food af­fect colony choice in cliff swal­lows?. The Con­dor, 104/1: 117-128.

Brown, C., M. Brown. 2000. Her­i­ta­ble basis for choice of group size in a colo­nial bird. Pro­ceed­ings of the Na­tional Acad­emy of Sci­ences, 97/26: 14825–14830.

Brown, C., M. Brown, K. Brazeal. 2008. Fa­mil­iar­ity with breed­ing habi­tat im­proves daily sur­vival in colo­nial cliff swal­lows. An­i­mal Be­hav­iour, 76/4: 1201-1210.

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Brown, C., M. Brown. 1995. Cliff swal­low (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota). Pp. None in P Rode­wald, ed. Birds of North Amer­ica, Vol. None. Ithaca, New York: Cor­nell Lab of Or­nithol­ogy. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 27, 2016 at https://​birdsna.​org/​Species-Account/​bna/​species/​cliswa.

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Brown, M., C. Brown. 2011. In­tense nat­ural se­lec­tion on mor­phol­ogy of cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota) a decade later: Did the pop­u­la­tion move be­tween adap­tive peaks?. The Auk, 128/1: 69-77.

Bullard, R. 1963. Band­ing notes on the Nick­a­jack cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota). East­ern Bird-Band­ing As­so­ci­a­tion News, 26: 191-203.

Byard, M., R. Free­man, G. Pester. 1979. Pere­grine fal­cons sighted in Texas County, Ok­la­homa. Bul­letin of the Ok­la­homa Or­nitho­log­i­cal So­ci­ety, 12/2: 13-14.

Dugas, M. 2010. Nestling birds put their best flange for­ward. Jour­nal of Avian Bi­ol­ogy, 41/3: 336-341.

Fajer, E., K. Schmidt, J. Es­chler. 1987. Acorn wood­pecker pre­da­tion on cliff swal­low nests. Con­dor, 89: 177-178.

John­son, A., S. Freed­berg. 2014. Vari­able fa­cial plumage in ju­ve­nile cliff swal­lows: A po­ten­tial off­spring recog­ni­tion cue?. The Auk, 131/2: 121-128.

Jones, H. 1883. An un­recorded habit of the Red-headed Wood­pecker. Or­nithol­o­gist and Ool­o­gist, 8: 56.

Kirby, R. 1978. Roost­ing of passer­ines over open water at night.. North Amer­i­can Bird Ban­der, 3: 104-105.

Mc­Nair, D. 2013. Cliff swal­low breed­ing range ex­pan­sion along the Great Pee Dee River cor­ri­dor in the Car­oli­nas. South­east­ern Nat­u­ral­ist, 12/3: 500-513.

Oliver, G. 1970. Black rat­snake pre­da­tion upon nest­ing Barn and Cliff swal­lows. Ok­la­homa Or­nitho­log­i­cal So­ci­ety, 3: 17-20.

Sikes, P., K. Arnold. 1986. Red im­ported fire ant (Solenop­sis in­victa) pre­da­tion on cliff swal­low (Hirundo pyrrhonota) nestlings in east-cen­tral Texas. South­west­ern Nat­u­ral­ist, 31: 105-106.

Sother­land, P., G. Packard, T. Taigen, T. Board­man. 1980. An al­ti­tu­di­nal cline in con­duc­tance of cliff swal­low (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota) eggs to water vapor. The Auk, 971: 177-185.

Thomp­son, B., C. Turner. 1980. Bull snake pre­da­tion at a cliff swal­low nest. Mur­relet, 61: 35-36.

Tum­li­son, R. 2009. Breed­ing by cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota) in south­ern Arkansas. South­west­ern Nat­u­ral­ist, 54/2: 208-210.

Weaver, H., C. Brown. 2004. Brood par­a­sitism and egg trans­fer in cave swal­lows (Petroche­li­don fulva) and cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota) in south Texas. The Auk, 121/4: 1122-1129.

Wilkin­son, G., G. Eng­lish-Loeb. 1982. Pre­da­tion and colo­nial­ity in cliff swal­lows (Petroche­li­don pyrrhonota). Auk, 99: 459-467.

With­ers, P. 1977. En­er­getic as­pects of re­pro­duc­tion by the cliff swal­low. Auk, 94: 718-725.