The weather today is fantastic. Perfect for laying down on the deck and watching birds, dragonflies and clouds. Only, as a scientist, my brain continued to analyze what I was seeing.
The birds were mostly swallows, a few chimney swifts, a lone gull. The gull was just flying by but the swifts and swallows were performing acrobatics - flying fast and high and making sudden turns. What were they doing? Hunting. Swifts and swallows eat their insect prey on the wing.
Thanks to Walter Siegmond and Wikimedia Commons
Which means... there must be a LOT of insects up there that I don't see. Enough to fuel high powered flight. Enough to raise hungry offspring. How many could there be? British scientist Jason Chapman estimates that about 3 billion insects pass over head every month 1. That comes out to 100 million each day. That will feed more than a few swallows. And give the insect-paranoid a raging case of the creeps.
What are the insects doing up there? Migrating, moving from one territory to another, hunting each other (remember those dragonflies I spotted?), trying to catch a ride on a Virgin Atlantic flight? [only one of these is unlikely - guess which one]
It is truly amazing how much life it out there, just beyond our range of vision. Even it we're paying attention we could miss it.
1. For more information check out this NPR story at
Don't forget our friends the bats, busy catching insects on the wing. And all the insects who do not fly.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately lots of people, including gardeners, are much to quick to use insecticides. They forget how useful insects are and how they harm the pollinators that we need. Honeybees?