Birds have a reasonably numerous lunch menu, some munch on seeds and berries, whereas others wish to complement their weight-reduction plan with loads of bugs. If there may be one insect that we like to see birds hunt – it’s the Mosquito. Sadly, mosquitoes should not a major meals supply, birds desire bigger, extra calorie-rich bugs however listed here are our favorites!
Prime 19 Birds That Eat Mosquitoes
1. Baltimore Oriole
- Scientific identify: Icterus galbula
- Size: 6.7 to 7.5 inches
- Wingspan: 9.1 to11.8 inches
- Weight: 1.1 to 1.4 ounces
The male Baltimore Oriole is understood for having a vivid orange underside with an all-black head and black wings with a single white stripe. Females are a paler orange-yellow on the breast, whereas their backs and heads are grey with two white stripes on the wings.
Eating regimen-wise, Baltimore Orioles munch on a big selection of bugs together with flies, crickets, beetles, grasshoppers, ants, snails, moths, spiders, and a small variety of mosquitoes. Additionally they eat many kinds of caterpillars, webworms, and larvae, in addition to nectar and fruits akin to mulberries, cherries, and raspberries.
2. Tree Swallow
- Scientific identify: Tachycineta bicolor
- Size: 4.7 to five.9 inches
- Wingspan: 11.8 to 13.8 inches
- Weight: 0.6 to 0.9 ounces
Male Tree Swallows possess a shocking blue-green again and prime of the pinnacle with white undersides, gray-black wings, and black eye masks. The females are extra grey and brown above.
The weight-reduction plan of a Tree Swallow primarily consists of flying bugs as they seize them within the air. These embrace mosquitoes, flies, dragonflies, ants, mayflies, damselflies, sawflies, bees, caddisflies, wasps, butterflies, true bugs, beetles, moths, and stoneflies.
Additionally they eat roundworms, spiders, mollusks, clamshells, fish bones, and the exoskeletons of crayfish.
3. Northern Cardinal
- Scientific identify: Cardinalis cardinalis
- Size: 8.3 to 9.1 inches
- Wingspan: 9.8 to 12.2 inches
- Weight: 1.5 to 1.7 ounces
This huge songbird is characterised by having a protruding crest and a thick beak.
Male Northern Cardinals have vivid purple our bodies and a red-orange beak with a black border across the invoice. Females possess the identical facial options however their plumage is lots duller.
Whereas they primarily munch on seeds and fruit, Northern Cardinals eat bugs to complement their weight-reduction plan and principally feed bugs to their nestlings. Examples of those bugs embrace mosquitoes, crickets, beetles, flies, butterflies, katydids, moths, leafhoppers, spiders, and centipedes.
4. Purple Martin
- Scientific identify: Progne subis
- Size: 7.5 to 7.9 inches
- Wingspan: 15.3 to 16.1 inches
- Weight: 1.6 to 2.1 ounces
Purple Martins are fairly massive for a swallow. Regardless of being referred to as purple, the males exhibit a extra blue plumage with a blackish tail and wings. Females are duller with grey shades on prime and whitish decrease undersides.
Purple Martins feed on bugs year-round, each flying and non-flying varieties, utilizing their tails to entice their prey.
Their weight-reduction plan consists of flies, mosquitoes, bees, beetles, crickets, dragonflies, grasshoppers, mayflies, damselflies, butterflies, leafhoppers, wasps, moths, caddisflies, cicadas, spiders, and termites.
5. Jap Kingbird
- Scientific identify: Tyrannus tyrannus
- Size: 7.5 to 9.1 inches
- Wingspan: 13.0 to fifteen.0 inches
- Weight: 1.2 to 1.9 ounces
Jap Kingbirds are medium-sized songbirds with black backs and white undersides. Their tails are additionally black with a white tip whereas the highest of their heads is a extra intense black.
In relation to meals, Jap Kingbirds are primarily insectivores. They munch on a big selection of flying varieties akin to mosquitoes, bees, wasps, ants, crickets, beetles, grasshoppers, flies, and locusts.
Aside from mid-air, generally these birds flip to vegetation, water surfaces, and the bottom to search out bugs.
6. Barn Swallow
- Scientific identify: Hirundo rustica
- Size: 5.9 to 7.5 inches
- Wingspan: 11.4 to 12.6 inches
- Weight: 5.9 to 7.5 ounces
A bit larger than Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows are steely blue above and rufous under. Their faces are cinnamon-colored and their crowns are a wealthy blue.
Their insect-based weight-reduction plan consists primarily of just about each sort of fly on the market. Additionally they eat different flying bugs akin to mosquitoes, bees, beetles, ants, wasps, moths, and butterflies.
7. Black-capped Chickadee
- Scientific identify: Poecile atricapillus
- Size: 4.7 to five.9 inches
- Wingspan: 6.3 to eight.3 inches
- Weight: 0.3 to 0.5 ounces
With an outsized head and a rounded physique, this lovely Chickadee has a black cap and beak with a grey again. Its cheeks are white and its underside is a buff-white coloration.
The weight-reduction plan of a Black-capped chickadee comprises bugs, starting from mosquitoes to spiders, irrespective of the season. In winter, they make up about 50% of their meals, whereas in spring and summer season, bugs turn into about 90% of the menu.
8. Blackpoll Warbler
- Scientific identify: Setophaga striata
- Size: 5.5 inches
- Wingspan: 8.3 to 9.1 inches
- Weight: 0.4 to 0.5 ounces
Blackpoll Warblers are small songbirds with a really attention-grabbing coloration sample.
Throughout the breeding season, they exhibit a black-and-white plumage with a singular black cap and a black mustache mark bordering white cheeks. Within the non-breeding season, they turn into a pale green-yellow.
The weight-reduction plan of Blackpoll Warblers primarily consists of bugs akin to mosquitoes, gnats, flies, caterpillars, beetles, ants, and lice. Additionally they eat spiders and fruits akin to pokeberry and honeysuckle.
9. Nice Tit
- Scientific identify: Parus main
- Size: 4.9 to five.5 inches
- Wingspan: 8.9 to 10.0 inches
- Weight: 0.5 to 0.8 ounces
The Nice Tit is a typical backyard fowl that appears quite cool. It has a pale gray-blue tail with a single white stripe on the tip. It’s green-gray above with a black head and contrasting huge white cheeks.
What’s significantly distinctive is that the black coloration runs from the pinnacle to the throat right down to the center of the stomach. Each side of the breast are lemon yellow.
Nice Tits like to feed on nuts, seeds, and bugs.
10. Chipping Sparrow
- Scientific identify: Spizella passerina
- Size: 4.7 to five.9 inches
- Wingspan: 8.3 inches
- Weight: 0.4 to 0.6 ounces
If a sparrow ever seems crisp and neat, it’s the Chipping Sparrows. It has a pale face and underparts with a vivid copper crown and a black stripe that runs throughout the attention.
The weight-reduction plan of a Chipping Sparrow is especially quite a lot of seeds, nevertheless it additionally eats bugs -especially in the course of the breeding season- to make sure they get plenty of protein.
11. Nashville Warbler
- Scientific identify: Leiothlypis ruficapilla
- Size: 4.3 to five.1 inches
- Wingspan: 6.7 to 7.9 inches
- Weight: 0.2 to 0.5 ounces
The Nashville Warbler is a compact fowl with principally yellow, inexperienced, and grey plumage. It has pitch-black eyes with a skinny white ring surrounding each. Its underside has a white patch between a vivid yellow breast and undertail.
The year-round weight-reduction plan of a Nashville Warbler virtually solely consists of bugs. The menu consists of mosquitoes, flies, beetles, grasshoppers, spruce budworms, leafhoppers, and caterpillars.
12. Jap Phoebe
- Scientific identify: Sayornis phoebe
- Size: 5.5 to six.7 inches
- Wingspan: 10.2 to 11.0 inches
- Weight: 0.6 to 0.7 ounces
Medium-sized and plump, the Jap Phoebe possesses a brown-gray plumage that’s darkish above and pale under. Its head is a darker brown than the remainder of its physique.
In relation to the weight-reduction plan of the Jap Phoebe, flying bugs are many of the objects on the menu. They wish to feed on mosquitoes, moths, wasps, flies, beetles, midges, and dragonflies.
These birds additionally munch on butterflies, cicadas, spiders, millipedes, and ticks. Often, they’ll eat seeds or small fruits.
13. American Robin
- Scientific identify: Turdus migratorius
- Size: 7.9 to 11.0 inches
- Wingspan: 12.2 to fifteen.8 inches
- Weight: 2.7 to three.0 ounces
The plumage of American Robins is gray-brown above and copper-orange under. The heads are darker in males however each sexes have a white patch beneath the tail that seems in flight.
Eating regimen-wise, American Robins primarily feed on bugs, invertebrates, and fruit. They eat plenty of flies, moths, mosquitoes, earthworms, and snails.
They’re additionally huge on juniper berries, chokecherries, sumac, hawthorn, and dogwood.
Bluebirds
The Western Bluebird, Jap Bluebird, and Mountain Bluebird all embrace bugs as a part of their weight-reduction plan. Let’s take a better take a look at the latter:
14. Mountain Bluebird
- Scientific identify: Sialia currucoides
- Size: 6.3 to 7.9 inches
- Wingspan: 11.0 to 14.2 inches
- Weight: 1.1 ounces
The male of the species is sky-blue above and white under with a darker shade of blue on the tail and wings. Alternatively, females are brown-gray with pale blue highlights on the tail and wings.
The weight-reduction plan of Mountain Bluebirds is generally bugs akin to flies, mosquitoes, beetles, caterpillars, spiders, and grasshoppers. Within the winter, they’ll resort to seeds and small fruits -such as grapes and sumac- when bugs aren’t as available.
Woodpeckers
Nearly each species of woodpecker eats mosquitoes as a result of their diets closely include bugs. Listed here are two widespread woodpeckers that eat mosquitoes:
15. Downy Woodpecker
- Scientific identify: Dryobates pubescens
- Size: 5.5 to six.7 inches
- Wingspan: 10 to 12 inches
- Weight: 0.7 to 1 ounces
Downy Woodpeckers appear like the traditional woodpecker type however smaller. Their plumage has daring black and white stripes, whereas the wings are extra checkered. Males of the species have a purple mark on the again of the pinnacle.
Downy Woodpeckers have an insect-based weight-reduction plan the place they feed on beetles, beetle larvae, corn earworms, mosquitoes, tent caterpillars, apple borers, and bark beetles. Additionally they eat grains, berries, acorns, and suet from feeders.
16. Black-backed Woodpecker
- Scientific identify: Picoides arcticus
- Size: 9.1 inches
- Wingspan: 15.8 to 16.5 inches
- Weight: 2.1 to three.1 ounces
The Black-backed Woodpecker has an inky black again and a white underside with black barring on the edges. Males possess a yellow patch on the crown, which is absent in grownup females.
The weight-reduction plan of Black-backed Woodpeckers is just about all bugs. They like to munch mosquitoes, beetles, and beetle larvae.
These birds discover their meals on the trunks and limbs of bushes, particularly burned ones. The species is even thought of essentially the most specialised forager woodpecker in North America.
Wrens
Wrens are songbirds that love consuming mosquitoes. Let’s check out one of the vital widespread wrens within the nation:
17. Carolina Wren
- Scientific identify: Thryothorus ludovicianus
- Size: 4.7 to five.5 inches
- Wingspan: 11.4 inches
- Weight: 0.6 to 0.8 ounces
Whether or not it’s a male or a feminine, a Carolina Wren is wealthy brown above and pale brown under. It has a darkish brown beak, an prolonged white eyebrow stripe, and a white throat.
Carolina Wrens primarily feed on Bugs and spiders. Their prey consists of moths, mosquitoes, caterpillars, stick bugs, crickets, leafhoppers, cockroaches, beetles, and grasshoppers.
Nuthatches
Nuthatches primarily forage on tree bark or the bottom the place they run into many bugs. Listed here are two species that eat mosquitoes:
18. Brown-headed Nuthatch
- Scientific identify: Sitta pusilla
- Size: 3.9 to 4.3 inches
- Wingspan: 6.3 to 7.1 inches
- Weight: 0.3 ounces
True to its identify, the Brown-headed Nuthatch has a brown head, grey again, and white underside. On the again of its head, there’s a white patch.
The weight-reduction plan of Brown-headed Nuthatches closely relies on bugs together with cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, and beetles. They search for their prey beneath barks on tree branches, trunks, twigs, and clusters of pine needles.
19. Purple-breasted Nuthatch
- Scientific identify: Sitta canadensis
- Size: 4.3 inches
- Wingspan: 7.1 to 7.9 inches
- Weight: 0.3 to 0.5 ounces
Final however not least, the Purple-breasted Nuthatch is gray-blue above and rusty brown under. It has a black cap, adopted by a white strip then a black stripe via the eyes.
Purple-breasted Nuthatches munch primarily on bugs together with ants, beetles, earwigs, caterpillars, mosquitoes, and spiders. Additionally they eat conifer seeds, peanuts, suet, and sunflower seeds.
Remaining Ideas
Whether or not they’re snatching mosquitoes mid-air or plucking them off leaves, these feathered pest controllers are doing us an enormous favor. If you wish to entice extra of those birds to your yard, contemplate including fowl feeders, birdbaths, and fruit-bearing vegetation to make your area extra inviting. Not solely will you get some pure pest management, however you’ll additionally benefit from the magnificence and songs of those wonderful birds. An actual win-win!