Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) are now performing their airborne acrobatics at a frenzied pace to feed their nestlings – swooping low, diving high, skimming just above field grass, and even helicoptering to yell at a neighbor that comes too close to the nest. This blue-brown blur was diving at an incredible speed yesterday:
Reports indicate that they need to consume about 6,000 small insects a day just for their own high-energy needs. When they have nestlings, they catch more. Both parents come to the nest to feed their young all day long and clean the nest of droppings on the way out.
Leighton Archive
They also take baths by skimming their bodies in the water and then flying fast and high to get a self-administered blow-dry.
Leighton Archive
(Brooklin, Maine)