Trego's Mountain Ear

In wet years, the first mosquito bite usually brings the comment that the swallows aren’t doing their job.  This has been a wet Spring, and I’ve received three mosquito bites so far – which is probably fewer than folks who see the pond would predict.  The swallows really do a good job of mosquito control – though I’ve thought about building a bat house on the hill to share the task.

The reference I called up explains that 99% of a swallow’s diet is insects, and that they usually eat about 60 insects per hour.  Generally speaking, they do a great job of mosquito control over the pond and hayfield, but don’t do so well in the woods.  Here we get both barn swallows and tree swallows sharing the task.   The difference is the tail:

The swallows that build lots of mud nests on buildings are Cliff Swallows – not particularly different from these guys, except that as winter comes, swallow bugs from those mud nests start moving into log homes and homes with board and batten siding – and swallow bugs look a lot like bed bugs.  To be fair, if your barn swallow nests on your log or board and batten home, the bugs can come from their nests too – but they don’t nest in colonies. Swallowbugs can go through a year between feedings.  And if they get into your house, you can be forgiven for mistaking them for bedbugs – but they’re a little smaller, usually grey, and you can see their antennae.  There’s more to it than that, but that was my Extension Agent criteria to share with panicked homeowners.  Swallowbugs in general aren’t much of a problem.  Of course, neither are bedbugs as long as they live somewhere else.