Length -- 5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch shorter than the English
sparrow, but apparently much larger because of its wide
wing-spread.
Male and Female -- Grayish brown or clay-colored above. Upper
wings and tail darkest. Below, white, with brownish band
across chest. Tail, which is rounded and more nearly square
than the other swallows, is obscurely edged with white.
Range -- Throughout North America south of Hudson Bay.
Migrations -- April. October. Summer resident.
Where a brook cuts its way through a sand bank to reach the sea is an ideal
nesting ground for a colony of sand martins. The face of the high bank shows a
number of clean, round holes indiscriminately bored into the sand, as if the
place had just received a cannonading; but instead of war an atmosphere of
peace pervades the place in midsummer, when you are most likely to visit it.
Now that the young ones have flown from their nests that your arm can barely
reach through the tunnelled sand or clay, there can be little harm in
examining the feathers dropped from gulls, ducks, and other water-birds with
which the grassy home is lined.
The bank swallow's nest, like the kingfisher's, which it resembles, is his
home as well. There he rests when tired of flying about in pursuit of insect
food. Perhaps a bird that has been resting in one of the tunnels, startled by
your innocent housebreaking, will fly out across your face, near enough for
you to see how unlike the other swallows he is: smaller, plainer, and with
none of their glinting steel-blues and buffs about him. With strong, swift
flight he rejoins his fellows, wheeling, skimming, darting through the air
above you, and uttering his characteristic "giggling twitter," that is one of
the cheeriest noises heard along the beach. In early October vast numbers of
these swallows may be seen in loose flocks along the Jersey coast, slowly
making their way South. Clouds of them miles in extent are recorded.
Closely associated with the sand martin is the Rough-winged Swallow
(Stelgidopteryx serripennis), not to be distinguished from its companion on
the wing, but easily recognized by its dull-gray throat and the absence of the
brown breast-band when seen at close range.