Bird of the Week – Cliff Swallow

Sure, they’re a messy nuisance if they build their mud daub nests under your eaves, but these are mosquito-eating machines. A Cliff Swallow foraging for its young eats about 60 bugs per hour, through all daylight hours. Both parents forage, so that’s 2 birds x 60 bugs per hour  x 20 daylight hours equals 2,400 bugs a day, mostly mosquitoes and flies. The hatching of their eggs is timed for peak bug season, wherever they nest. So for a month or so, a Cliff Swallow pair are biological mosquito magnets. Except, of course, that these mosquito magnets cost us nothing…