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Re: martins, mosquitos, etc.



On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Leah Campbell wrote:
>
> Purple martins don't consume large amount of mosquitos? How
> disappointing! Are there any birds that actually do? Nightjars perhaps?

Nope, sorry, birds are pretty slack in the mosquito control department.
You'd have much better luck with dragonflies, but unfortunately nobody's
figured out how to build a dragonfly nest box yet :--)

Actually, fish (especially Gambusia) are even more effective than
dragonflies; it isn't for nothing that they call Gambusia affinis the
Mosquitofish! Unfortunately, the most bothersome mosquito species for us
suburbanites, and I beleive the species that spread West Nile Virus and
Eastern Equine Ecephalitis most often, are tree-hole-breeding species that
even fish can't reach. The most effective strategy so far is (a) dumping
out water-holding containers like discarded tires, beer cans, etc. where
these critters breed, and (b) dropping BT-infused "donuts" into tree holes
and other natural breeding sites that we can't just empty out. They've
done some tests with a cannibal mosquito, whose larvae eat other mosquito
larvae and whose adults don't bite humans, but apparently no luck there
yet.

Nightjars, as I understand it, mostly eat moths and other big wingy prey.
I've heard that Purple Martins actually mostly eat dragonflies, and so
might even make mosquito problems *worse*, but I refuse to hold that
against them!

Eno River appears safe for the moment; only 6 speakers (2 from the Durham
Chamber of commerce) spoke in favor of building Eno Drive, vs. 38 against,
and only John Best (who really insulted the intelligence of everyone there
by oversimplifying the problem) spoke in favor of the plan among the
elected officials present. End result: they're appointing a committee to
try and revise the red tape surrounding the funding to make the money
available for some plan other than Eno Drive. So no highways will be
encroaching any closer to the Eno River yet, until the next time the
fracas breaks out...

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/