Bank Swallows in flight
Riparia riparia
Bank Swallow · Staten Island · 5 July 2026
Two Bank Swallows over the marsh on Staten Island, the nearer bird's white throat and crisp brown breast band identifying it. Bank Swallows are the smallest swallow in North America and the only one that nests exclusively in burrows: tunnels up to a metre or more deep, dug into vertical faces of sand or soil, in colonies that can run to hundreds of pairs in a single bank.
The second bird, caught in a tighter turn, is almost certainly the same species, though the motion blur makes it a harder call. In Britain the same bird is the Sand Martin.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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