(_Clivicola riparia_) Swallow family
_Called also_: SAND MARTIN; SAND SWALLOW
_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 house-breaking, 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.