These winged helpers destroy a great variety of insects while feeding their chicks. This is probably why insectivorous birds are deservedly considered to be beneficial to humans. Although, for example, the same starlings cause damage to vineyards and stone trees during their autumn migrations.
Insectivorous birds
From the very name it is clear what, or rather, who these animals eat. Insectivorous birds destroy insect pests, including beetles and scoops, weevils and moths, leaf beetles and whites, aphids and bugs, flies and many others. Naturally, insects are their main food (especially when hatching and feeding chicks).
Insectivorous birds. Titles
In the grass, on the ground and in the air, starlings and hoopoes, blackbirds and finches, corvids, sparrows and larks gather all kinds of pests. In the thickets of bushes, tons of insects are destroyed by robins and wrens, warblers. In the crowns of large trees there are orioles and cuckoos, kinglets and warblers, tits and woodpeckers. And this is not a complete list of insectivores.birds living in the middle lane.
Some interesting facts
Insectivorous birds sometimes render great services to mankind. And if not for the work of these winged helpers, some species of insects would have bred in huge numbers, because it is known that this is one of the fastest breeding groups of inhabitants of the planet.
- In the middle of the last century in the Scandinavian countries, the cabbage moth multiplied so much that its number was more than 100 million individuals per hectare. Here the birds came to the rescue of man and destroyed the excess in nature.
- And in the United States on the Great Lakes in 1975, "fish flies" reached myriad numbers. They even stuffed themselves into cars and houses, their corpses strewn the streets and coasts with a layer up to 15 centimeters high. Special equipment was provided for cleaning. And this time winged helpers came to the rescue.
- Sparrow, which is insectivorous, at one time was almost completely (by order of the government) exterminated in China, as it was considered a harmful devourer of grain crops. The fields began to teem with caterpillars, which there was no one to destroy, and it took a considerable amount of time to restore the population to its previous norm.
- A kind of control over the number of insects, carried out by insectivorous winged birds, plays a huge role in nature. Thus, on one hectare of forest (according to studies conducted by Moldovan scientists), seven pairs of insectivorous birds with hatched chicks destroyed about 6,000,000 insects in just 90 days, a thirdof which are harmful.
