Welcome Swallow ground feeding

[Chris Bindon]

A couple of days ago I was watching a small number of Swallows going back and forth Hawking for insects over our metal (gravel) drive way and park area. After a short time, two of the birds landed close together on the drive, pecked at the metal and appeared to be eating as I could see them quickly peck and swallow something several times, just for around 20 or so seconds. Initially before I saw that they were consuming something, I first thought that they were simply collecting finer grit and softer soils in between the larger stones for use in nest building but in watching closely, they were definitely eating something. I held a fix on where they had briefly been after they alighted and went and had a closer look at the spots. The only thing I could see potential prey wise were a few Ants, not masses of them by any means but just a few here and there moving over some of the stones and my only conclusion was that they were eating a few of the Ants before flying off again. I've never witnessed any stationary feeding by Welcome Swallows and of course not of Ants though flying swarming Ants as happens up here during the warmer months could of course be a different story. Has anybody else seen this or similar ground based feeding behaviours from Welcome Swallows please?

Thanks,

Chris

[Finn Davey]

I've seen Swallows ground feeding on a gravel road, presumably looking for bugs in between the stones

[Jim Kirker]

Thanks for sharing this Chris, intriguing behaviour alright. Did a quick search and came up with " Barlow and Klaas (1963:439) mention
swallows picking up bits of gravel from road surfaces, presumably for grit."
Looks like many passerines are recorded eating grit so maybe that's what you saw with those two swallows.

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/file ... -p0371.pdf

[bombaydave2]

Could they have been collecting bits of nud and storing in mouth for nest building?