Photo © by Pauhana
Del Valle Regional Park, LIvermore, Alameda County, California, 10 June 2017
- Tachycineta thalassina
Identification
12–13 cm (4¾-5 in)
Males have nonglossy, velvety green or greenish bronze upperparts, and are white underneath. White on the face extends above the eye, unlike Tree Swallows. Two white patches on rump.
Females are dull in color.
Juveniles are grayish-brown with a faint bronze sheen on the back.
Similar Species
Similar in appearance to Tree Swallows.
Distribution
Found from the Rocky Mountains west to the Pacific coast. Spans from central Alaska and central Canada south to Mexico's highlands.
Taxonomy
Two subspecies:
- T. t. thalassina:
- Alaska and Canada to central Baja and southern Mexico; winters to Costa Rica
- T. t. brachyptera:
- Mountains of central and southern Baja; coastal western Mexico (Sonora to Sinaloa)
Habitat
Prefers open, deciduous, or mixed coniferous-deciduous forests containing ponderosa pine, aspen, willow, and spruce trees. In northern range, breeds at lower elevations on the coast and in wooded canyons. Breeds at higher elevations in the southern part of their range, also use habitat towns and cities. Also found in cities and suburbs in the Northwest.
Behaviour
Fly rapidly in small flocks in pursuit of flying insects, like other swallows. This species spends more time perched than some others.
Diet
Their diet consists almost entirely of insects.
Breeding
They have only one brood each year. Although they are generally seen in groups of about 25 to (less often) 50 pairs, sometimes just a single pair are observed.
Vocalisation
Most common call is a rapid buzzy twitter unlike the liquid bubbly calls of the similar Tree Swallow.
Movements
Mostly a long-distance migrant, wintering from southern Sonora and the Mexican Plateau south to Honduras and El Salvador, occasionally to Costa Rica; resident in Mexico. Forms flocks before and during migration.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Brown, C. R., A. M. Knott, and E. J. Damrose (2020). Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.vigswa.01
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 2019. Violet-green_Swallow in: All About Birds. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/ Accessed on 19May 2020.
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Violet-green Swallow. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 1 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Violet-green_Swallow
External Links
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