Country Ecology: Tree swallows and neonics

We worry about the aerial insectivores decreasing each year, due mostly to pesticides that have set insect populations back in considerable numbers. Suddenly, even aquatic insect life is being affected as tainted surface water flowing off farm fields gets into streams and ponds with its loading.

All us observing swallows on rainy days flitting just over waves of local bodies, catching the hatch coming up from subsurface habitats, know that is where they go during rainstorms. They just keep feeding there — until things dry out once more, and various bugs hiding under leaves return to the air.