So … my chimney: it has swifts in it.
At least I think they’re the source of the twittering and chittering and fluttering sounds that emanate from my fireplace at all hours of the day and night.
It began about a month ago. One evening I heard some strange noises coming from the living room fireplace. The cats heard it, too. We were all puzzled and fascinated.
At first I thought the sound might be bats. They live around here as well, and they sometimes roost during the day on the exterior of the house attic vents. I don’t mind bats, per se, but I began to wonder whether an accumulation of guano on my fireplace damper could become an unpleasant problem. Then I began to hear the sounds during the day, along with the fluttering of wings.
I did some more research, and I came to this conclusion: I have chimney swifts.
I’m not very familiar with chimney swifts. I’ve never encountered them before. I don’t have any pictures of my own. They’re elusive, and when they fly around in pursuit of insects, they’re …. well, swift.
I don’t know if they’re nesting in there or just using my chimney as a home base. What I do know is that they’ve been getting chatty lately. During this past week their twittering and chirping has become more frequent and louder. They now provide part of the soundtrack of TV shows and exotic polyrhythms when I listen to the radio. I don’t know what they’re up to in there, but for little birds, they seem to be surprisingly loud about it.
I don’t really know how common they are in my area, but I’ve seen some reports on ebird.org and the local newspaper had a Q&A about them. Someone wrote to the newspaper to ask how to get rid of chimney swifts. Fortunately the newspaper has an Audubon expert who writes a column and who answered: just leave them be.
Like many other birds and non-flying species, chimney swifts are coping with the loss of habitat.
Unlike most other species, chimney swifts actually benefited from human activity, at least for a while. Before they lived in chimneys, these birds lived in hollow trees, which weren’t always plentiful. The construction of buildings with brick chimneys, however, provided them with new habitat. They flourished among human settlements that provided them with their namesake living quarters. Recently, however, building construction methods have changed again, and brick chimneys are on the way out. Alas, so too are the birds who like to live in those chimneys.
Now that I know that, I’m happy to offer them a place to live for the summer. Chimney swifts only live in North American during their summer breeding season. In September or October they will fly back to their winter residences in South America.
Until then, I guess I’ll just put up with the strange noises coming from the living room fireplace. Surprisingly, the household cats have already tuned them out. It amazes me sometimes that the cats just ignore the bird sounds in the fireplace. Apparently their sound is just part of the background routine, nowhere near as interesting as moths, spiders, crickets, or the incredibly fascinating junebugs that can hold the feline members of the household spellbound.
Well, that’s what’s going on around here.
How about you?