All species › Passerines › Swallows › Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › All other modern birds Neoaves › Landbirds Telluraves › Falcons, parrots and passerines Australaves › Falcons and passerines Eufalconimorphae › Parrots and passerines Psittacopasserae
Northern Rough-winged Swallow | Stelgidopteryx serripennis
Noord-Amerikaanse ruwvleugelzwaluw | Golondrina ala aserrada
The Northern Rough-winged Swallow is a plain brown swallow without striking markings, with a dull grey-brown throat and breast. It often hunts low over water and likes to perch on wires, branches and bridges. In the guide area resident birds breed in much of Mexico and Central America; in winter they are joined by migrants from North America, which reach Panama.
Voice
A low, harsh, rolling prrrt, often repeated in series.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm, with a short, almost square tail. Upperparts plain grey-brown, wings slightly darker. Throat and breast dull grey-brown, grading into a white belly; undertail coverts white. Resident birds of the Yucatán Peninsula and surroundings are darker, with a dark loral spot and dark tips to the undertail coverts. In the male the outermost primary has small hooks that give the wing a rough edge.
Confusion species
Southern Rough-winged Swallow Stelgidopteryx ruficollis (Honduras to Panama) has a cinnamon throat and a pale rump. Bank Swallow Riparia riparia is smaller, with a white throat and a sharp dark breast band. Young Tree Swallows Tachycineta bicolor have a white throat and a diffuse grey-brown breast band.
Habitat
Near rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, but also over pastures, fields, roads, quarries and villages, from the lowlands into the mountains. It hunts flying insects low down, often over water. It nests in burrows in banks and road cuts and in crevices in rocks, walls and bridges; it rarely digs its own burrow.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds from southern Canada through the United States and most of Mexico into Central America, south to Costa Rica. Winter visitors from North America spread across Mexico and Central America to Panama. The dark form of the Yucatán Peninsula and surroundings is treated by some authors as a separate species.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Seen almost anywhere with open water and steep banks or bridges. In winter often in mixed flocks with other swallows over lakes and rivers.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common and widespread; it uses man-made nest sites such as road cuts, bridges and drainage pipes.
Scientific name
Stelgidopteryx serripennis | (Audubon, 1838)
Audubon described the species in 1838 as Hirundo serripennis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Stelgidopteryx was introduced in 1858 by Baird. Stelgidopteryx is Greek, from stelgis 'scraper' and pterux 'wing', after the rough, serrated outer web of the outermost primary. serripennis is Latin, from serra 'saw' and penna 'feather', after the saw-like hooks on the outer primary. The specimen the first description was based on came from Charleston, South Carolina, USA.