These winged helpers during the feeding of their chicks destroy a great many insects. This is probably why insectivorous birds are justifiably considered to be beneficial to humans. Although, for example, the same starlings cause damage to vineyards and stone trees during their autumn flights.
Insectivorous birds
From the name itself it is clear what, or rather - by whom, these animals feed. Insectivorous birds destroy insect pests, among which there are khrushchiki and scoops, weevils and moths, leaf beetles and whites, aphids and bedbugs, flies and many others. Naturally, insects are their main food (especially during the hatching and feeding of chicks).
Insectivorous birds. Names
In the grass, on the ground and in the air of all kinds of pests, starlings and hoopoes, blackbirds and finches, corvids, sparrows and larks are collected. In the thickets of shrubs, tons of insects are destroyed by zaryanki and wrens, warblers. In the crowns of large trees are Orioles and cuckoos, kings and warblers, tits and woodpeckers. And this is not a complete list of insectivorous birds that live in the middle lane.
Some interesting facts
Insectivorous birds sometimes provide huge services to humanity. And if it weren’t for the work of these winged helpers, some types of insects would have multiplied in huge numbers, because it is known that this is one of the fastest growing groups of inhabitants of the planet.
- In the middle of the last century, in the Scandinavian countries, cabbage moth bred 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 overabundance in nature.
- And in the USA on the Great Lakes in 1975, "fish flies" reached a myriad of numbers. They even packed up in cars and houses, their corpses strewn the streets and coasts with a layer up to 15 centimeters high. Special equipment was allocated for cleaning. And this time, winged helpers helped out.
- Sparrow, which is an insectivore, at one time was almost completely (by order of the government) exterminated in China, as it was considered a harmful grain eater. 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 winged insectivores plays a huge role in nature. So on one hectare of the 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, one third of which are harmful.