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| Chimney Swift by Rob Curtis (theearlybirder.com) |
(published 4-17-13)
April is a time of rising anticipation for local birders. We
know the best of spring migration is just ahead. Soon the dazzling buntings,
grosbeaks, orioles, tanagers and warblers will arrive in numbers, a yearly spectacle
that never gets old.
I enjoy the colorful pageant as much as anybody, but this
year it’s one particular species I’m looking forward to most. Not a flashy one
either, just a little sooty gray bird that most people never notice.
I’d never given much thought to chimney swifts until 2011.
That’s when Ray Kotz and Jackie Vernot, a Naperville couple, approached with an
extraordinary offer. Would Cantigny
Park, they asked, be interested in a home for swifts?
Ray and Jackie wanted to build a chimney swift “tower” and
thought Cantigny, where I work, would be an ideal site. They know the property well from their
participation in the park’s monthly bird walks.
Soon a package arrived from Amazon.com, sent by Ray. Inside were two books, one about chimney
swifts and the other about building swift towers. The Texas-based authors, Paul and Georgean
Kyle, are well known for their work in chimney swift conservation. Their books
and website, ChimneySwifts.org, are prime resources for anyone interested in Chateura pelagica.
The chimney swift is a common species that visits our region
from late April through mid-October, give or take a few weeks on either
end. It spends the rest of the year in
the upper Amazon basin of eastern Peru, northern Chile and northwestern Brazil.
Swifts spend most of their daylight hours in the air,
feeding on flying insects. You can hear
their loud “chippering” as they dart about the sky on long swept-back
wings. At night they roost in groups.
Unfortunately, as with many other neotropical migrants, the
swift population is declining. While not
classified as a threatened species in Illinois, chimney swift is listed among “Birds
of Concern” in the Chicago Wilderness Region.
The swift once relied upon natural habitat for roosting and
nesting. It was primarily a woodland species
and favored large hollow trees. But as
America developed, swifts adapted to the urbanized landscape. Silos, industrial air shafts and brick
chimneys became their new haunts. These
days, however, suitable man-made structures are in shorter supply. Factory smokestacks are demolished,
residential chimneys are capped, and new chimneys are often lined with steel,
rendering them useless to swifts.
Fortunately, chimney swifts will utilize “artificial”
housing, just like purple martins and Eastern bluebirds. Havens like the one Ray and Jackie were proposing
for Cantigny can help.
Well, to make a long story short, the park accepted their
generous offer. Ray and Jackie developed
the plans, hired the contractor and paid the bills—a remarkable gift.
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| If you build it, will they come? Cantigny Park will find out. |
Now we wait for the birds. It could be weeks or it could be
years. With swifts, as with purple martins, all you can really do is find a
good site, offer the proper housing and then cross your fingers.
I know of only two other swift towers in the region and both
are still awaiting their first customers. One is located along the Batavia
Riverwalk. Dedicated in 2010, the tower aimed to mitigate the loss of Batavia
Bowl, which was demolished. The bowling
alley’s large chimney had been a popular roosting site for swifts.
Also in 2010, the McHenry County Conservation District
erected a swift tower at Prairieview Education Center in Crystal Lake.
Swift towers provide ample and safe space for dozens of
roosting birds. Inside, the swifts cling to the roughly textured walls, facing
upward. Their feet and short tails are
specially adapted to this vertical lifestyle. In fact, swifts are incapable of standing or
walking on flat surfaces.
Only one pair of swifts will use a tower to raise a
family. Their shelf-like nest, truly an
avian marvel, consists of tiny sticks, held together and fastened to the
interior wall by sticky saliva.
I dream of seeing my first chimney swift nest, hopefully
inside the new tower at Cantigny Park. More immediately, I’d like to witness
the summer spectacle of hundreds or even thousands of swifts entering their
evening roost. I’m told it’s like watching dark smoke swirl backwards into a
chimney.
Paul and Georgean Kyle, the book authors, refer to chimney swifts
as “mysterious” birds. That’s because we almost never see them up close or at
rest. The Kyles solved that issue by
installing video equipment inside several swift towers located on their
property. They watch the birds on a big screen inside their home!
The rest of us must settle for enjoying the
sight and sound of swifts high overhead, and that’s not a bad alternative. We may not think about chimney swifts very
much, but some of us would sure miss them if they were gone.
Copyright 2013 by Jeff Reiter. All rights reserved.