When I was young, summers were filled with outdoor exploration. On warm summer evenings we would grill fresh fish for dinner outside while purple martins swooped and swooned in and out of the little houses that we had put up for them. At that time, it never occurred to me that the act of providing a simple home for small birds could make such a large ecological impact. Today we know that birds like martins and swifts help control insect populations, making life a little more comfortable for us humans…a swift can eat around 10,000 insects per day!
Read Sara Gagné’s new urban ecology post here on the importance of old brick chimneys for swift survival, and see if you can spot these gems in your neighborhood. Perhaps you have an opportunity to impact their low population numbers by saving an old chimney or building a new one.
Written By Sara Gagné, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
August is well underway, and school is right around the corner. In this summer blog series focused on revealing the ecological intricacies of North Carolina’s urban and suburban places, I’ve explored the street tree ecosystem in your neighborhood and the biodiversity and health of your local stream. In this last installment, I look ahead to one of our state’s most beautiful natural phenomena: the communal roosting of chimney swifts in the old brick chimneys of our schools, churches, and mills. You can find out more about this topic and others in my book, Nature at Your Door: Connecting with the Wild and Green in the Urban and Suburban Landscape.
It’s been several weeks now since I’ve heard or seen chimney swifts swooping over my backyard. Ever since I moved close to Uptown Charlotte, I’ve delighted in the evening chatter of swifts, barely visible high in the sky where they dine on the mosquitoes and other insects that bug us all summer. Chimney swifts are small ash-colored birds that Roger Tory Peterson aptly described as “cigars with wings”. Although they are very difficult to observe up close because they are nearly always airborne, I did manage to get a good look at one last fall when it landed on a windowsill of the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville. The swift seemed to be catching its breath yet eager to be off into the sky again. Its appearance suggested optimal design for an aerial life: a stubby but sleek head and body with barely any beak, neck or tail to speak of, flanked by two long perfectly arced wings. It clung to the sill – chimney swifts can’t perch like other birds – until it finally dropped off, swinging, into the surrounding blue.
The number of chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) has declined by 67% since the mid-1960s. Credit: Jim McCulloch, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
At about this time last year, a dozen swifts were swirling amid dragonflies and other insects in the late afternoons above my lawn (one of the benefits of avoiding pesticide use!). But this year, nothing. Now, I feel bereft of a sight that brought me joy and wonder each summer day. I also feel worried because I’ve come to rely on the presence of my neighborhood swifts as indicators that there is still time to save the wondrous wild creatures we live amongst – in effect, that they are still there for the saving. In the case of the chimney swift, this may soon not be the case. The species is listed as Vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red list of Threatened Species, the master list of the state of wildlife on the planet. A rating of Vulnerable means the chimney swift is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild. The key threat to the species is the ongoing loss of nesting sites, especially older chimneys.
This spring and earlier this summer, three swifts were chitter-chattering high in the sky whenever I went outside. Once they arrive back in North Carolina from their South American wintering grounds in April and May, pairs of swifts choose a chimney in which to nest, often accompanied by an unmated helper. The chosen chimney will accommodate only one set of nesting swifts, although it may also be home to roosting unmated birds. As the breeding season tapers off in August, all adults and young begin to congregate in roosting chimneys to spend the night. In the fall, when the swifts gather in large numbers to prepare for migration, these congregations can become very large – in some cases, in the thousands. This is when spectators are treated to an incredible sight, the swirling of hundreds of swifts around their roost chimney. Local Audubon chapters and other groups organize “Swift Night Out” or “Chimney Swift Watch” viewing events to behold the magic. In my neighborhood, about 75 birds circle around my local middle school’s old brick chimney. As the sky darkens, the swifts, one by one and then in small groups, leave their funneling neighbors to drop effortlessly into the chimney top, until only the stars remain in the sky.
To try to figure out why my backyard swifts have disappeared, I checked the roosting chimneys I know about in my neighborhood. I was relieved to find about 20 swifts coming together for their nightly slumber party in a small church chimney. But when I went to the middle school, its old chimney was silent. A single swift came into view as I waited, but soon departed. Although the chimney still stands, its disuse is clearly the reason why I haven’t seen swifts near my house. I hope they weren’t killed but managed to find somewhere else to spend the night.
I don’t have a chimney in my house, but if you do, uncap it and close the damper from March to October. A single pair of chimney swifts will build a small, basket-like nest on the wall of the flue as early as April and raise up to ten young over the next four months. In November, put the cap back on and use your fireplace as usual for the winter. Then, in early March, have the chimney inspected and cleaned, the cap removed, and close the damper to welcome a new brood. If all goes well, in one year, you will have increased the number of swifts in the world by fivefold.
It’s also important to protect North Carolina’s old school and mill chimneys for breeding and roosting swifts. If your local school is being replaced, advocate for a freestanding chimney to be added to the new campus. If your school has a chimney, check if there are swifts in it and inform your child’s teacher so the class can learn about the beauty and benefits of the species, not least the fact that each swift ingests up to 10,000 insects and other pests each day. A great place to start is with the Merlin or Audubon apps that show you what the species looks and sounds like. In my case, I’m off to talk to the middle school’s principal to find out if they capped their chimney or cleaned it over the summer. I’m hoping that next year, I’ll be accompanied by middle school swifties of my very own to welcome back these beautiful birds.
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Sara A. Gagné is the author of Nature at Your Door: Connecting with the Wild and Green in the Urban and Suburban Landscape (Stackpole Books, 2023) and associate professor and chair in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Geographical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Gagné’s research, teaching, and writing is dedicated to understanding and communicating how people and nature interact in cities. She lives in Charlotte, where she tries to spend as much time as possible looking for otters, salamanders, and other wild neighbors.
Find her on Instagram at urban_nature_clt and at saragagne.com
