The tree swallow has glossy blue-green upperparts, with the exception of the blackish wings and tail, and white underparts. It breeds in the US and Canada, winters along southern US coasts south, along the Gulf Coast, to Panama and the northwestern coast of South America, and in the West Indies. The female incubates the clutch of two to eight pure white eggs for around 14 to 15 days.
About Tree swallow in brief
The tree swallow was first described in 1807 by French ornithologist Louis Vieillot as Hirundo bicolor. It has since been moved to its current genus, Tachycineta, within which its phylogenetic placement is debated. The tree swallow has glossy blue-green upperparts, with the exception of the blackish wings and tail, and white underparts. It breeds in the US and Canada, winters along southern US coasts south, along the Gulf Coast, to Panama and the northwestern coast of South America, and in the West Indies. The female incubates the clutch of two to eight pure white eggs for around 14 to 15 days. The chicks hatch slightly asynchronously, allowing the female to prioritize which chicks to feed in times of food shortage. This swallow is vulnerable to parasites, but, when on nestlings, these do little damage. Because of its large range and stable population, the tree swallow is considered to be least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In the US, it is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. In Canada, it has a protected status under the M migratory Birds Convention Act of 1966. The swallow is negatively affected by human activities, such as the clearing of forests, which force a breeding tree swallow to go long distances to find calcium-rich food items to feed to its chicks. The effect of disease can become stronger as a tree swallow gets older, as some parts of the immune system decline with age.
Acquired T cell-mediated immunity, for example, decreases with age, whereas both innate and acquired humoral immunity do not. In studies based on mitochondrial DNA, it was placed within the basal American clade consisting of the North-Caribade swallow, golden swallow, Bahama swallow, and Bahama clade. The other name comes from the Greek figure who supposedly turned into a swallow, Procne, meaning ‘two-coloured’ or ‘rainbow’ The bird is socially monogamous, with high levels of extra-pair paternity, which can benefit the male, but since the female controls copulation, the lack of resolution on how this behaviour benefits females makes the high level of paternity puzzling. It is sometimes considered a model organism, due to the large amount of research done on it. It forages both alone and in groups, eating mostly insects, in addition to molluscs, spiders, and fruit, and generally eat insects, fed to it by both sexes. It can be found in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, and can be seen in South America and the Caribbean. The generally accepted genus name is Iridoprocne, from Ancient Greek etos, and the specific bicolor is Latin and means two-Coloured Iris. Bicolor means “two and a half coloured.” It is also called white-bellied swallow.
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This page is based on the article Tree swallow published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
