Flight of the Cliff Swallows

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Cliff Swallows have returned in large numbers this Spring along the San Antonio River. They generally nest under the bridges. Cliff swallows can easily be confused with barn swallows, however, the shape of their tails easily distinguish the two species one from the other. The barn swallow's tail has a distinct fork shape, where the cliff swallow's tail is squared.

The swallows are fascinating birds to watch. They live in colonies, so there will almost always be a large number of them in an area at the same time catching insects in flight. These birds fly at a fairly fast speed and make sharp turns abruptly without slowing:

This set of photos is from my walk along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River yesterday (Wednesday, April 10th).

Cliff Swallows And Much More Along the Salado Creek Wetland

Monday, March 26, 2012

Salado Creek Greenway, Lady Bird Johnson Park Trailhead, Morningstar Boardwalk

Today's photos:

Cliff swallows spend the winter in the tropics and migrate back north to their breeding range in the spring. They apparently arrived recently on the Salado Creek wetland as they were busy today gathering mud from the creek bed and building nests under the Nacogdoches Rd bridge. They aren't particularly easy to photograph both because of their relatively small size and the way they fly, constantly changing direction without appearing to slow down.

In addition to the cliff swallows, there were many other creatures to photograph on my walk today, so this is part one of a two part series.