Here you see one of our fastest little birds obeying the law. Yes, it’s a tree swallow taking a deserved rest yesterday.
A pair of these fast-flying acrobats reportedly needs a daily diet of about 6,000 small insects – all caught in the air – to feed themselves and their fledglings.
These five-inch swallows not only eat on the fly, they drink and bathe while skimming over still water. They often go unnoticed due to their blurring speed.
Although these birds remain common breeders In Maine, they have experienced tremendous declines in recent decades, according to New England ornithologist Peter D. Vickery. This is part of an overall decline of swallows and most other air-hunting insectivores in North America, he reports in Birds of Maine (2020). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 30, 2023.)