Riparia riparia
Order Passeriformes
Family Hirundinidae
Adult.— Upper parts grayish-brown; under parts white; a brownish band across the breast; tail slightly forked.
Nest, in a hole in a sandy bank.
Eggs, white.
The Bank Swallow is a summer resident throughout New York and New England, arriving late in April, and leaving early in September. Over the surface of the large New England rivers, from the Housatonic to the Penobscot, and up the valleys of their tributaries, far into the mountains, little bands of these small brown swallows hunt back and forth throughout the summer.
Banks of clay or sand, cut through by the river, are breeding-sites for colonies of them; occasionally they take possession of a deserted gravel-pit. Here the little toes scratch out holes which run two or three feet into the bank; often there are many holes close to each other, and perhaps a Kingfisher’s hole, twice as large as the swallow’s, among them.
The small size of the Bank Swallow, the absence of any blue or greenish lustre, and its harsh, gritty note easily distinguish it from all other adult Swallows, except in southwestern Connecticut and the lower Hudson Valley. Here the Rough-Winged Swallow must be taken into consideration. Young White-bellied Swallows [Tree Swallow] have brown upper parts, and in their first plumage a wash of brown on the sides of the breast, but no decided band entirely across the breast, as in the Bank Swallow.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)