A small team of bird experts is researching barn swallows in an effort to understand why the population of the tiny songbirds has plummeted in Ontario.
The province estimates that numbers of the birds have decreased by 65 per cent between 1966 and 2009.
While no one really knows what's causing the decline, researchers suspect habitat loss is behind the drop.
Biologists with Bird Studies Canada have been studying nests in dilapi-dated barns in more than 20 locations across the province.