Bahama swallow

Bahama swallow
Conservation status
Endangered (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Hirundinidae
Genus:	Tachycineta
Species:	T. cyaneoviridis
Binomial name
Tachycineta cyaneoviridis (Bryant, 1859, Nassau, New Providence, Bahama Islands)

The Bahama swallow (Tachycineta cyaneoviridis) is a swallow found only in the Bahamas.

Description

This glossy Tachycineta swallow has a green head and back, blue upper wings, a black tail and wingtips, and a white belly and chin.

Range and habitat

This swallow breeds only in pineyards on four islands in the northern Bahamas: Andros, Grand Bahama, Abaco, and New Providence. The breeding population on New Providence is, at the very least, greatly reduced from historical levels, and may be extirpated as a breeding species.

The Bahama swallow winters throughout the Bahamas and perhaps in eastern Cuba, but in general the full extent wintering range is poorly known. It is a rare vagrant elsewhere during migration, including south Florida and the Florida Keys. It is also an occasional vagrant to the southerly Americas.

T. cyaneoviridis is a bird of the Caribbean pine forests. They are somewhat capable of adapting to urban habitat. Although they do not breed in marshland and fields, they need such habitat to forage; like all swallows they feed on flying insects.

Reproduction

Bahama swallows nest in old woodpecker holes in Caribbean Pine (Pinus caribaea var. bahamensis), using pine needles, Casuarina twigs, and grass to make the nest, and they line it with feathers from other passerines. They typically lay three eggs. Incubation is 15 days and the fledging period is roughly 22 days.