Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Breeding Range. (Fig. 113). Locally common throughout the Southwestern Slope Region and on the Northwestern Drift Plain and Southern Drift Plain; fairly common locally on the Missouri Coteau and Northeastern Drift Plain, and in the Agassiz Lake Plain and Turtle Mountain Regions. Breeding populations are represented by local colonies that range in size from a few pairs to several hundred pairs.
Breeding Habitat. Throughout the state, most breeding populations are found along streams in the vicinity of bridges or large culverts, and a few colonies occur in the vicinity of barns, country school houses, and grain elevators. In southwestern North Dakota, breeding populations also occur quite regularly in the vicinity of highway overpasses, and local populations are found near faces of cliffs and steep escarpments of buttes, or steep, eroded slopes of the badlands.
Nesting. Breeding season: Early May to early September; peak, late May to late July. Extreme dates of active nests (129 colonies): May 8 [1962] to September 6 [1961] in Stutsman County (RES). Extreme egg dates (4 nests): June 13 [1873] in Pembina County (Cones 1878) to July 9 [1895] in Towner County (Bishop egg collection catalog, Peabody Museum). Nestlings were recorded as early as June 26 [1917] in Richland County (Jensen 1918).
The nesting sites of 136 active colonies were recorded. Of these, 116 colonies (85.3%) were situated under bridges, highway overpasses, or in large culverts; 11 colonies (8.1 %) were located under eaves on the sides of barns, school houses, and grain elevators; and the nests of 9 colonies (6.6%) were adhering to the faces of cliffs and steep bluffs in the badlands or on buttes. In 1873, Coues (1878) found large colonies that were situated on steep banks of streams in the area extending west along the 49th parallel from Pembina through the Mouse River loop country.
 |
| Figure 113. Breeding Range of Cliff Swallow. |
| 
|
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/bbofnd/species/6120.htm
Page Contact Information: Webmaster
Page Last Modified: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 11:25:06 EDT
Menlo Park, CA [caww54]
