The Bank Swallow is the smallest swallow in North America and the plainest, brown above and white below with a clean brown band across the chest that instantly separates it from Michigan's other swallows. It flies with quick, fluttery wingbeats over water and open ground, snapping up flying insects, and gathers in chattering flocks near its nesting sites. What it lacks in color it makes up for in its remarkable colonial lifestyle.
Bank Swallows are burrow nesters, excavating tunnels a few feet deep into vertical faces of sand and gravel — eroding river banks, lake bluffs, and the walls of sand pits — where dozens or hundreds of pairs nest side by side in a pockmarked colony. This dependence on freshly exposed, crumbling banks makes them vulnerable when such sites are stabilized, dug out, or overgrown. In Michigan they breed near water and along the Great Lakes shorelines from May through summer before migrating to South America.
An aerial insectivore that catches small flying insects on the wing over water, marshes, and open fields, often foraging low and in flocks. Its entire diet is airborne prey, taken during nearly continuous flight while the birds are on their breeding grounds.
It is the smallest swallow, plain brown above and white below with a distinct brown band across the chest. That breast band on an otherwise brown-and-white swallow is the key mark; other Michigan swallows lack it.
Bank Swallows dig nesting burrows into vertical faces of sand and gravel, such as eroding river banks, lake bluffs, and pit walls. Colonies can hold many pairs, and the birds need freshly exposed, crumbly banks to excavate.
Along eroding river and lake banks, Great Lakes bluffs, and active sand and gravel pits, where you may see a bank riddled with holes and swallows streaming in and out during the breeding season.
A colony. They dig nest burrows into sandy banks and bluffs, sometimes hundreds side by side, which makes an active Bank Swallow colony one of the more remarkable sights along a Great Lakes shoreline.
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