The Barn Swallow is the only swallow that is truly "swallow-tailed". Its song is a long musical twitter interspersed with guttural sounds. Widespread in the northern hemisphere, its prefers open land: farms, fields, marshes, lakes, and wires. They migrate long distances seasonally and can cover as much as 600 miles in one day. Swallows are known for their graceful dives and swoops, catching insects 'on the fly'.