06-05-2025
- Climate
- Hamilton Spectator
P.E.I. watershed groups hope to reverse declining tree swallow populations
TROUT RIVER, P.E.I. – Some local birds are getting a helping hand and a place to stay thanks to some P.E.I. watershed groups.
Trout River Environmental Committee and several other watershed groups are building nesting sites to help tree swallows as the birds' population declines.
In an interview with The Guardian on April 17, Trout River Environmental Committee director Shayla Steinhoff explained tree swallows face a number of challenges.
Tree swallows are aerial insectivores, eating approximately 2,000 insects per day.
The number of insects that the tree swallows can eat is declining due to the use of pesticides for various purposes, Steinhoff said.
'They're eating insects already impacted by pesticides, so they can be affected by this. But then they also have a decline in the insect population, so they have a decline in their food source,' Steinhoff said.
As a potential result, tree swallows are declining in population.
'They decline by about 0.7 per cent a year right now,' Steinhoff said.
Several local P.E.I. watershed groups are building nesting sites to track their population in the aftermath of post-tropical storm Fiona to prevent the birds from becoming endangered.
'The cross-watershed tree swallow box program started with Kensington North Watershed Association, and then we expanded the program to include five different watershed groups,' Steinhoff said.
This year, the program has eight groups monitoring 90-plus nesting boxes.
South Shore's local watershed group is also part of the tree swallow program.
In a phone interview with The Guardian on April 22, South Shore Watershed Association manager Matt Meenik says the swallow species needs all the help it can get.
'I know the bank swallow is a threatened species, and barn swallows are pretty rare, too. But, we hope to keep the tree swallow away from those titles,' he said.
Tree swallows are pretty, Meenik added.
'They're insect eaters, so they're really agile, flying around, chasing bugs everywhere,' he said.
Last year, nearly 200 tree swallows were banded across P.E.I.
'From the 60-plus nesting boxes that we monitored, 42 of these boxes had active nests, and 36 were successful, meaning eggs were laid and fledged as well,' Steinhoff said.
Fledgling is the term for recently born birds that have left their nest but still depend on their parents for food and protection.
'And we counted 238 eggs last year, with 83 per cent of these fledging,' Steinhoff said.
Again, tree swallows are a declining species, and Steinhoff said it's a good idea to prevent them from getting to a worse stage than they are right now.
'I think we should be doing a lot more preventative work rather than stepping in after the fact,' she said.
As the Trout River watershed group is reaching its second year in tracking these tree swallows, this year, they'll scout and see if any of them made their way back to what they call home – Prince Edward Island.
The tracked tree swallows all have an identification number on the band, Steinhoff said.
'What we would do is we would write down this ID number, say this bird returned to the same location or maybe a different location, and then we upload all this data to Birds Canada — helping track the overall populations of tree swallows across the country,' she said.
It's important to carefully not disturb the nests and the eggs for the banding process, Steinhoff said.
'There's kind of a perfect stage after the chicks have hatched that they're old enough that their legs aren't chubby for the bands,' she said.
For adult birds, it's a different process as they'll usually band them after laying their eggs, Steinhoff added.
'This is when they're kind of sitting on their nests, and they just kind of stay there so we can reach in and carefully grab them using what's called a bander's hold. And then professionals will band them,' she said.
Local P.E.I. residents can find out about joining the initiative by contacting the watershed groups that are involved in the program, Steinhoff said.
'Most of our nesting boxes are on private land, so we have what we call nesting box hosts,' she said.
The watershed groups also have an online booklet available for residents to build their own birdhouses for the tree swallows.
'It's called the Cross-Watershed Tree Swallow Box Program booklet – so if they did not want to be involved in the program and they just wanted to put up their own nesting box, they can use that booklet as a guide as well,' Steinhoff said.
Yutaro Sasaki is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter, a position funded by the federal government. He can be reached at
ysasaki@
and followed on X
@PEyutarosasaki
.
