BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 20, 2023
By the time you finish reading this, more swallows will have poured into the state. I hope. The problem is that swallows are aerial insectivores. Like many other songbirds, they eat bugs. However, while most warblers are adept at picking food off leaves and bark, swallows need to snatch most of their food in flight. Tree swallows are down 30 percent. Barn swallows down 25 percent. Northern rough-winged swallows down 18 percent. There are no officially verified reasons for the declines, but the usual suspects are habitat loss and food shortages. Tree swallows have lost ground to competition from other cavity nesting birds, such as house sparrows. Barn swallows have fewer barns and abandoned buildings to nest in. ~ Bob Duchesne