A Bit of Magic in the Air
The sound gives me chills – a frantic chattering that builds in pitch drowning out all other sounds. It is the kind of sound you would expect from some flesh-eating beast, not from a chimney swift no bigger than your thumb.
They are eerie birds with their gaping mouths, their sharp claws, their charcoal colored feathers, and that sound -- the stuff of nightmares.
Yet, spend an afternoon feeding them every 15 minutes, and you start to think that really, they are magnificent birds, and isn’t it wonderful the way they open their mouths so wide to be fed? And just look at the grip of those claws.
Baby chimney swifts have started showing up at the wildlife rehab center. They cling to a piece of cloth draped over the side of the cage, their eyes closed until the chattering begins, first one, then another, until they’re all clamoring for food.
They build their nests in chimneys. The nest itself looks like half of a cup glued to the bricks. In hot, humid weather as we had this week, the creosote in chimneys often becomes damp and the nest falls. If the birds are lucky, the people who find them take them to a wildlife rehabilitator so by fall they’ll be ready to make their long journey to South America where they roost on the face of cliffs in Peru and Northern Chile.
Back before there were chimneys, they nested in caves and hollow trees. They’re often found in the tall round chimneys found at old school buildings and industrial sites. Only one pair nests in a chimney, but hundreds may roost there later in the season.
But as those chimneys are torn down, the number of chimney swifts is also decreasing.
Most often, you see them high in the sky, flying in a big loop. Flying cigars, some people call them because of their stubby bodies, the sharp wings that slice the air. Chimney swifts never alight on the ground. They eat as they’re flying, about 25,000 mosquito-sized insects a day. When at rest, they cling to the inside of a chimney with their long claws.
In August, I released five young chimney swifts from the rehab center to join a colony in downtown Greensboro. I had been told that near sunset I would see a few “scouts” flying around the chimney. Slowly the others would join them, flying in a loop, chattering, until hundreds were in the air. The birds I was releasing would join the flying circle. After an hour, they would drop back into the chimney. The scouts would round up the stragglers, then they, too, would disappear.
It happened just like that, and yet I was unprepared for the way it moved me: their movements like a ballet, their chattering a symphony. The sight of hundreds of birds dropping into the chimney as though drawn by a magnet was a bit of unexpected magic.
Then all was quiet.