Petrochelidon pyrrhonota
Order Passeriformes
Family Hirundinidae
Other names: Eave Swallow
Adult.— Head dark blue; forehead cream-white; back dark, with bluish reflections; rump pale brick-red; throat deep chestnut; belly whitish; tail square or fan-shaped in flight.
Nest, of mud, under the eaves of barns or outbuildings.
Eggs, white, spotted with reddish-brown.
The Eave Swallow is a summer resident of New England and New York, arriving about the first of May, and leaving early in September. In some regions it is very abundant, but it is often absent from wide areas, as about Boston. Even where it does not breed, it may be observed as a migrant near large bodies of water. Its ordinary note is a harsh monosyllable.
In western Massachusetts and in northern New England, colonies, numbering frequently over fifty nests, may be found under the eaves of barns on large farmsteads; these colonies are often a mile or so apart, whereas the Barn Swallow inhabits almost every outbuilding along the road. Toward the end of May, Eave Swallows are seen hovering daintily over mud puddles, or flying with a pellet of mud to their half-finished nests. These are composed of mud, and are gray when dry; they are placed outside of the barn, directly under the eaves, and are often retort-shaped, that is, furnished with a neck bent away from the round body of the nest.
The sitting female often thrusts out her head, showing the cream-white frontlet, and in early July, as the parents fly up to the nests from below, or cling to the entrance, they show the reddish-brown rump.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)