Learning on the fly: Studying migratory swallows in Chile

We rarely think twice when we see a swallow flying through the sky, but these aerial acrobats are key members of our ecosystems. They rely mainly on insects that they catch mid-flight for food, so the abundance of swallow populations are a good reflection of the health of an ecosystem. Worryingly, over the last fifty years, populations of aerial insectivores that breed in North America have decreased by ~ 32% (Rosenberg et al. 2019).