The uncommon nighthawk

Unfortunately the common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) isn’t all that common anymore. From May until September, Canada hosts an estimated 900,000 of them, coming here to nest before their long trip to South America where they wait out the winter. But we used to harbour considerably more back in the day. From 1973 through 2012 it’s been estimated their population plummeted some 76 per cent, and by no means has that trend slowed down. Those 900,000, estimated as such in 2013, are merely the survivors of a nation-wide decline. While no single cause has yet been reliably linked to this downward spiral, we do have some compelling theories, perhaps the most credible being a severe lack of food. Birds of this variety have the aforementioned habit of snatching their breakfast and supper from the air in spectacular fashion, filling out their diets with the flying ants, beetles and others pests which aggravate our campfires. Unfortunately, for a long time our response to these inconvenient insects has been the excessive use of pesticides, culminating — it’s thought — in the serious decline of flying bugs across much of the nighthawk’s range. Several species of bug-snatching bird — aerial insectivores, as their known — have been suffering from coast to coast presumably as a result, the nighthawk included.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, 21 Feb 17
http://thechronicleherald.ca/southshorebreaker/1443539-the-uncommon-nig…