Swallows

The vast reduction in insect numbers is indicative of generally declining nature everywhere, from birds to elephants, and wildflowers to frogs and toads. There are exceptions, especially with larger and more charismatic species, including otters and peregrine falcons. Generally, though, the trend is downwards. Because all nature is connected the declines in different groups are connected. Thus, fewer insects means fewer insect-eating birds, such as swallows, swifts and skylarks.

Der 22. Mai war der Internationale Tag der biologischen Vielfalt – doch nach wie vor verschwinden viele Arten. Das von der Europäischen Union gesetzte Ziel, diese Entwicklung bis spätestens 2020 zu stoppen, wurde bislang nicht erreicht: „Es ist eher davon auszugehen, dass wir viele weitere Arten, Lebensräume und genetische Vielfalt bis zum Ende dieser Dekade verlieren werden“, sagt Gernot Segelbacher, Professor für Wildtierökologie und Wildtiermanagement der Fakultät für Umwelt und Natürliche Ressourcen an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Swallows are small, speedy, short-winged aerial hunters with slender bodies and pointed wings and a tail, just like a jet airplane. The birds are quick and graceful in flight, often catching a variety of flying insects in midair during a long, dizzying air travel pattern near the water or in a meadow. These short-billed aerial hunters know exactly what they are doing. A single Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) , for example, can consume 60 insects per hour, an amazing 850 per day. The small birds are surely one of Mother Nature’s most successful avian insect predators.

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommerns offener Landschaft gibt es immer weniger Vögel. Darauf hat der Naturschutzbund Deutschland (Nabu) nach der diesjährigen Zählaktion „Stunde der Gartenvögel“ hingewiesen. „Während sich bei den Vögeln unserer Dörfer und Städte über die Jahre Zu- und Abnahmen die Waage halten, gibt es auf den Wiesen und Feldern fast nur Verlierer“, sagte der Nabu-Landesvorsitzende Stefan Schwill am Donnerstag in Schwerin.

Normally my first sighting of swifts – the dark, scythe-winged birds that scream over our summer rooftops – is on voting day in May. I can’t blame them this year. If I’d spent the past few months swooping over the Congo and Mozambique, I’d have shunned the cold grey mizzle that greeted voters yesterday. Swifts (Apus apus) are among the last summer visitors to arrive and the first to leave, flying south as soon as they have raised their young. They were made for flying and only touch down to nest.

North America has more than a billion fewer birds than it did 40 years ago, with the snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) and the chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica) just two of the better-known species in dramatic decline across the continent, a recent survey has found. The total number of continental landbirds stands at about 10 billion, down from about 11.5 billion in 1970.

Studies on the risks of neonicotinoids have often focused on bees — pollinators vital to farm production that have been experiencing population declines — but “it’s really not just about bees,” said Christy Morrissey, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Saskatchewan.

Entomologists call it the windshield phenomenon. "If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen," says Wolfgang Wägele, director of the Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity in Bonn, Germany. Today, drivers spend less time scraping and scrubbing. "I'm a very data-driven person," says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in Portland, Oregon. "But it is a visceral reaction when you realize you don't see that mess anymore."