The Bahama swallow (''Tachycineta cyaneoviridis'') is an

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

swallow The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

The Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

Description

This glossy ''

Tachycineta ''Tachycineta'' is a genus of birds in the swallow family Hirundinidae. There are nine described species all restricted to the Americas. These are slender swallows with forked tails. Most species have a metallic green back, green or blue head, ...

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

Distribution and habitat

This swallow breeds only in pineyards on four islands in the northern Bahamas:

Andros Andros ( el, Άνδρος, ) is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, about southeast of Euboea, and about north of Tinos. It is nearly long, and its greatest breadth is . It is for the most part mountainous, with many fr ...

Grand Bahama Grand Bahama is the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, with the town of West End located east of Palm Beach, Florida. It is the third largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays. The island is ...

, Abaco, and

New Providence New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 246 ...

. The breeding population on New Providence is, at the very least, greatly reduced from historical levels, and may be

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

as a breeding species. The Bahama swallow winters throughout the eastern Bahamas and the

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and n ...

. It is a rare vagrant elsewhere during migration, including south

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and e ...

and

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

.American Ornithologists Union, (1998)
Check-list of North American Birds
7th edition. American Ornithologists Union, Washington, D.C. It is also an occasional vagrant to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. ''T. cyaneoviridis'' is endemic to the Bahamian pineyards, though they are somewhat capable of adapting to

urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...

habitat. Although they do not breed in marshland and fields, they need such habitat to forage; like all swallows, they feed on flying

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

Reproduction

Bahama swallows nest in old

West Indian woodpecker The West Indian woodpecker (''Melanerpes superciliaris'') is a species of bird in subfamily Picinae of the woodpecker family Picidae. It is found in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Cuba. Taxonomy and systematics The West Indian woodpecke ...

(''Melanerpes superciliaris'') holes in

Caribbean pine The Caribbean pine (''Pinus caribaea'') is a hard pine species native to Central America and the northern West Indies (in Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands). It belongs to subsection '' Australes'' in subgenus ''Pinus''. It inha ...

(''Pinus caribaea'' var. ''bahamensis''), using pine needles, twigs of trees from the genus ''

Casuarina ''Casuarina'' is a genus of 17 tree species in the family Casuarinaceae, native to Australia, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, islands of the western Pacific Ocean, and eastern Africa. It was once treated as the sole genus in the fami ...

'' (introduced species in the Bahamas), and grass to make the nest, and they line it with feathers from other

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

s. They typically lay three eggs. Incubation is 15 days and the fledging period is roughly 22 days.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q788597 Bahama swallow Bahama swallow Endemic birds of the Bahamas Bahama swallow