I’ve probably noted this before, but back in the ‘60’s, we returned home to the house on Wyman Road, south of Yarmouth, to find a red squirrel on top of the tree swallow house.   My father put up a ladder and found that the squirrel had killed all of the chicks.  He put a property-wide bounty on red squirrels after that. 

The bird house has gone and a more recent attempt didn’t attract any swallows.  Still, the local tree swallow population seems relatively healthy, and the last couple of years I have seen more barn swallows than before, particularly over the hill in Chebogue.   

We still have red squirrels, as well.  Not as many as when I was a kid, but still some.

The feral cat population, on the other hand, is by no means threatened.

From: Fritz McEvoy [mailto:fritzmcevoy@hotmail.com]
Sent: November 13, 2020 12:21 PM
To: naturens
Subject: [Naturens] Tree Swallow nests 2020

Hi All,

    I cleaned out my Tree Swallow nest boxes last week and 2020 was a pretty good year for active nests. I monitored 28 boxes this year and 17 had successful nests. There were 10 squirrel roosts - 7 Red & 3 Flying. One Red Squirrel roost was on top of a Tree Swallow nest. Two boxes were empty.

     There are three related side notes of interest to this year's count.

     The plexiglass predator guards added last year weren't successful in keeping out squirrels. The plexiglass stopped squirrels from enlarging the entrance hole and the 1^1/2" hole is too small to allow pregnant squirrels to enter/leave the box. Squirrels were able to enter the box for other purposes like winter roosts.

     This season, for the first time, I observed a Red Squirrel predation of a Tree Swallow nest. I happened to spot a young squirrel poke it's head out of a box I knew had an active nest. I was able to quickly remove the squirrel, but two chicks were already dead. I removed dead chicks and quickly examined remaining two chicks and found them in good condition. I straighten up the nest, closed the box and left. Within a short time, the parents came back, and breeding soon returned to normal. When cleaned out this fall the nest had no evidence of predation, so I presume the squirrel never returned and the two remaining chicks were reared successfully .

      In 2019 I collected and saved the Tree Swallow nests when I cleaned out the boxes in the fall. In May/June of 2020 I was able to collect dozens of moth specimens from a few of these nests. One of the species collected - Niditinea sabroskyi - turned out to be a new species for Canada. A short note on the range expansion has recently been published in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 122(4) : 1019-1021.

     All the best.

        Fritz McEvoy

        Sunrise Valley CB