Feeding Habits: Feeds mostly on flying insects, such as gnats, mosquitos, bees, mayflies, etc.
Unique Features: Cliff swallows will build their mud nests on the side of cliffs, buildings or streambanks. A mating pair will equally share in the building of a nest. Cliff swallows build their nests by gathering small chunks of mud from along the shoreline and placing them on top of one another.
Building a mud nest takes a lot of work. A typical mud nest consists of 900-1200 individual mud pellets. Cliff swallows live in colonies that can range from small colonies of a dozen nests, or even thousands of nests all clustered next to each other.
They continue to stay together in large flocks during migration and on their wintering grounds. They migrate over several months, passing through Mexico, Central America to reach their wintering grounds in South America.