[5] The difficulty in taxonomic placement is largely due to the morphological similarities between swifts which make determining the history of evolutionary divergence difficult.

[2] Migratory breeding populations can be found from Arizona and New Mexico north to southern British Columbia, and from central California east to eastern Colorado and Wyoming.

[2][7] There are two main areas in which non-breeding wintering populations can be found: the first includes southwestern California, eastern Arizona, the Texas Panhandle, while the second is in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Mexican state of Chiapas.

[2] In natural settings, swifts form colonies of as many as 400–500 birds in protected cliff crevices that are generally 6–50 meters above the ground.

[9][10] While foraging, white-throated swifts are found flying over meadows, agricultural fields, and open areas along the edges of ridges and hills.

Swifts are aerial insectivores who frequently forage in areas of rising air along the edges of canyons, foothills, or mountains to capture insects.

[2] White-throated swifts have also been observed foraging over agricultural lands, and are known to follow harvesting machinery to capture insects disturbed by the equipment.

[12] Stomach content analysis has found that beetles, flies, bees, and true bugs (Hemiptera) constitute a majority of the white-throated swift's diet.

[2] Once a pair is established, nests made of plant material and feathers held together with saliva are built on rocky cliff faces or human-made structures.

[3] In southern parts of their range, egg-laying occurs in April, but in more northerly areas, clutches are usually laid throughout May, with a median first-egg date of May 13.

[2] Such declines could be related to loss of roosting and nesting sites from quarrying, mining, and the demolition of older buildings, as well as reduction in food supply due to pesticide use.