12 August 2024
On Friday I wrote a few swarm of dragonflies. As we speak it’s a swarm of swallows.
On 31 July my sister watched greater than two dozen tree swallows swarm over her yard in Tidewater Virginia. They had been feasting on flying bugs for about 20 minutes, after which they had been gone.
After they end breeding, tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) collect in ever-growing flocks in July and August and start their southward migration. In transit they search out swarms of bugs that will embrace true flies (Diptera), dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata).
Peak tree swallow migration happens in early to mid-fall. I used to be at Cape Cod on 1 October 2017 after I witnessed an enormous flock at West Dennis Seashore. Ample bugs attracted the tree swallows; considerable swallows attracted a falcon who captured one in his talons (prime proper of photograph beneath).
On 6 October 2021, Mike of Mike’s Nature Connection witnessed the same flock on Cape Cod.
See this map for your self at eBird Standing and Developments > Tree Swallow > Weekly Abundance.
