What Types Of Birds Are Useful In Eliminating Mosquitoes? And How Do You Lure Them To Your Yard?
20 February 2010
10 Comments
I love working in my yard and have been hanging bird houses and bird feeders this year. I’ve really given no thought to particular types of birds though. Tonight I came inside because the mosquitoes were driving me crazy and it occurred to me that there is most likely some type of bird that eats mosquitoes…what are they and how do I get them to make my home their home?
Purple Martins, Robins, Bats and adding a pond to your backyard will all help. Keep up with the bird feeders, though, because even though these birds don’t eat seed too much, they like to hang out with other birds. Plus the pond will bring the insect-eating birds, too.
Something else to consider: planting marigolds in pots around your doorways to keep the buggers outside. http://www.gomestic.com/Gardening/Five-P…http://www.mosquito-netting.com/predator…
To diminish mosquito populations, attract birds that eat insects on the wing (they catch flying insects in the air). The main ones are swallows such as the tree swallow, violet-green swallow, barn swallow, eastern kingbird chickadees, house wrens, gray catbirds, bluebirds, vireos, warblers, orioles, tanagers, and even some of the sparrows such as the chipping sparrow.
Bats are also very effective mosquito eliminators.
Check out the third question in the link I am attaching below – it covers which birds eat them and how to attract them. Also be sure to put in a bat house in an area where raccoons and things cannot reach it – because they eat tons of mosquitoes and are not harmful to people at all, in reality.
Contrary to “Popular Belief”, Purple Martins DO NOT eat many mosquitos. This was a marketing gimmick to sell purple martin homes that was, of course, developed by the manufactuers of the bird homes. (research it…you’ll see it’s true)
I would HIGHLY suggest that you hang bat houses instead. A single bat WILL consume 3000 mosquitos each evening…
Both birds and bats eat mosquitoes but are not considered effective enough to control the mosquitoes.
Purple Martins eat lots of mosquitoes. They like the type of house that is very tall and has many compartments.http://www.purplemartin.net/
Bats are great to control mosquitoes. Set up bat houses if you have bats in the area.
Purple Martin houses….
I was wanting to know the same thing. I found this article on Purlple Martins stating that they DO NOT eat mosquitoes (believe me, I was ready to invest in some purple martin houses): http://purplemartin.org/main/mgt.html
Martins, like all swallows, are aerial insectivores. They eat only flying insects, which they catch in flight. Their diet is diverse, including dragonflies, damselflies, flies, midges, mayflies, stinkbugs, leafhoppers, Japanese beetles, June bugs, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, cicadas, bees, wasps, flying ants, and ballooning spiders. Martins are not, however, prodigious consumers of mosquitoes as is so often claimed by companies that manufacture martin housing. An intensive 7-year diet study conducted at PMCA headquarters in Edinboro, PA, failed to find a single mosquito among the 500 diet samples collected from parent martins bringing beakfuls of insects to their young. The samples were collected from martins during all hours of the day, all season long, and in numerous habitats, including mosquito-infested ones. Purple Martins and freshwater mosquitoes rarely ever cross paths. Martins are daytime feeders, and feed high in the sky; mosquitoes, on the other hand, stay low in damp places during daylight hours, or only come out at night.
I think most of the birds like insects..
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