Ever since we got to Michigan I’ve noticed a great deal of chimney swifts flying around. They resemble bats in the air but are more bullet-shaped – kind of a cross between a bat and a boomerang. They are the most Machine Age Art Deco birds. They have been in every Midwestern city we’ve visited, seeming to follow our bus. When I notice them in the sky I feel a twinge of delight. They are so fast and nimble. I associate them with late 1800s/ early 1900s mammoth brick buildings – old hospitals, warehouses, schools, factories, breweries, etc. They love buildings that are only inches apart. They are birds who cannot roost but hang or cling to the sides of brick structures. They used to roost in dead hollow trees but now bed down almost exclusively in old chimneys. The bigger the chimney, the more swifts.
I live just north of Detroit and made this cool (IMHO) story map about local chimney swift populations. Not sure where in Michigan you are, but you might like to check it out! (Not sure how it looks on mobile, might want to use your computer)
I live in the center of Guadalajara where there isn’t an abundance of wildlife, but I do enjoy the presence of Grackles, fearless little Quail who don’t fly away until you’re a foot away, and Hummingbirds who have taken a liking to entering my 4th floor apartment via the atrium.
The Grackles are particularly amusing with their mocking of the urban sounds surrounding them.
The most profound spectacle I’ve ever witnessed, however, was while taking a walk through Seward Park in Seattle on a hot Summer afternoon.
A huge flock of Crows, probably on their way either North or South of the city, had caught a thermal above Lake Washington. It was a column of hundreds of birds extending a few hundred feet above the lake surface, swirling in tornadic perfection.
I stood in silent awe for about an hour until they dispersed.
We have a small back yard, about 1/5 acre, but it is our little slice of nature with many different forms of wildlife living there or passing thru. One of the most interesting and fun things to watch, which I had never seen before moving to this house, is the mating "dance" or "game" that our little group of wild rabbits participate in. A pair will stop and face each other, usually about 2-3 feet apart, sit motionless and stare at each other for several seconds, and then suddenly one will charge at the other, and the chargee jumps straight up in the air as the charger passes below. Then they turn around again like a pair of duelers at 10 paces, and do it again in the opposite direction. This sometimes goes on for several minutes until one of them gets tired of the game and runs off, or they both run off due to some other thing startling them. My wife and I have seen it countless times now, but its always fun to watch, and puts a smile on our faces. I don't think I have ever seen the swift phenomenon you describe, but I will be on the lookout next time I'm in an area like that. Thanks.
I have had chimney swifts nest in my chimney ....they are very chatty in the morning! I hope they are back again this year. I live in the Connecticut suburbs, not sure why my brick got chosen but I'm glad it did :-)
You know about the Chapman Swifts in Portland, right? A month long spectacle, in residence nightly, a giant cloud of swifts slowly funnelling into a dormant coal chimney at an elementary school. Everyone brings a picnic and watches the show.
Sorry for second comment today this one unrelated to swifts.
My wife is reading a novel “Axiom’s End” by Lindsay Ellis and pointed me to this mother / daughter exchange on the daughter’s use of a $200 loan “I had to use it on gas” lied Cora, “and had another credit card bill I needed to pay off.” It continues —- “The truth was she had used the money on a Neko Case concert, her third of the year, but Demi didn’t need to know that.”
Damn good way to use a $200 loan from the mom’s I’d say.
We love swifts and have seen a pair swirling around at dusk here in Central Florida - of all places! And when we see a kite we practically slam the brakes on all activity to watch them in the air. (Also - we saw our first Baltimore Oriole at our feeder this year! Very rare down here. We suspect all the crazy weather chased them our way. When we posted seeing them we were doubted by all - but we have the photographic proof!)
We don’t have chimney swifts over here but swallows and I love to watch them fly and make sounds between the buildings and in the sky. We have this ”poem” in finnish that counts the months/days until summer by the arrival of different birds. Once you see swallows then you know the summer is here. 😊
I live on an east coast lake... my favorite are the cormorants. They strike me as the stealthy military patrol, on alert & ready to protect their lake... the mallards, egrets, herons, turtles, bass & catfish. They swim, fly & rest in packs of twenty or thirty, their silky, sharp black beaks & wings especially striking en masse at sunrise or sunset. I never grow weary of the view from my kayak
I lived in Brighton, England for a time, and in the wintertime the starlings would congregate near the pier there and perform similar murmurations by the thousands, swooping and diving in enormous black clouds and then all going home to roost under the pier in one final enormous dive. It's about the only thing that made the 4pm sunsets bearable in the winter.
Now, back home in Texas, it's the yearly motion of caterpillars and butterflies that are my seasonal nature thrill. The swallowtail caterpillars have just finished pillaging the fennel I planted for them and have gone off to cocoon, while the monarchs are still months from arriving at my mistflowers to feed. Even in the city, it's a pulsating rhythm that feels nothing short of magical when I stop to think about it for a moment in the garden.
Thanks for all the birding posts. Chimney Swifts are like flying cigars. Particularly loved the roadrunner post. Maybe you can play Tarrytown Music Hall next May-Sept (last two NYC area visits were Brooklyn only) and see the Bobolinks at Croton Point Park. Real good numbers this year. I remember when you called out a great blue heron from Clearwater stage at Croton Point; our lamented lost festival on the Hudson.
Mobs of Roos in outer suburban Adelaide watching us poor saps drive by, Flying foxes on warm evenings shreeeking, pods of dolphins in the Port River as I drive to work. And those incredible hairy spiky caterpillars that appear in spring down here, to name a few see also Rosellas and Galahs squawking
I've never been fortunate enough to see a column of swifts, or the bats leaving the cavern, but I do always stop for nature. Once I happened upon a spider laying its eggs in my fruit bowl. Amazing! Right now, we have a loveliness-ess of ladybugs in our garden mostly nestled in and chilling out in our Mock Orange. The longer you look into the petals of the flowers, the more you see their little spotted forms and I may have spent an enormous amount of time chatting with them.
Here in medieval France the swallows and bats have returned. I like walking through the rocky overpasses and stone walls and looking for the piles of shit that indicate a little nest overhead. I like the shrilling of the babies and the way the parents swoop in and just Hork some chow down their gullets. And it reminds me of watching the same rituals under the bridge in Humboldt park.
I live just north of Detroit and made this cool (IMHO) story map about local chimney swift populations. Not sure where in Michigan you are, but you might like to check it out! (Not sure how it looks on mobile, might want to use your computer)
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=0be60805764a4800982b9708e199b2ed
I live in the center of Guadalajara where there isn’t an abundance of wildlife, but I do enjoy the presence of Grackles, fearless little Quail who don’t fly away until you’re a foot away, and Hummingbirds who have taken a liking to entering my 4th floor apartment via the atrium.
The Grackles are particularly amusing with their mocking of the urban sounds surrounding them.
The most profound spectacle I’ve ever witnessed, however, was while taking a walk through Seward Park in Seattle on a hot Summer afternoon.
A huge flock of Crows, probably on their way either North or South of the city, had caught a thermal above Lake Washington. It was a column of hundreds of birds extending a few hundred feet above the lake surface, swirling in tornadic perfection.
I stood in silent awe for about an hour until they dispersed.
We have a small back yard, about 1/5 acre, but it is our little slice of nature with many different forms of wildlife living there or passing thru. One of the most interesting and fun things to watch, which I had never seen before moving to this house, is the mating "dance" or "game" that our little group of wild rabbits participate in. A pair will stop and face each other, usually about 2-3 feet apart, sit motionless and stare at each other for several seconds, and then suddenly one will charge at the other, and the chargee jumps straight up in the air as the charger passes below. Then they turn around again like a pair of duelers at 10 paces, and do it again in the opposite direction. This sometimes goes on for several minutes until one of them gets tired of the game and runs off, or they both run off due to some other thing startling them. My wife and I have seen it countless times now, but its always fun to watch, and puts a smile on our faces. I don't think I have ever seen the swift phenomenon you describe, but I will be on the lookout next time I'm in an area like that. Thanks.
I have had chimney swifts nest in my chimney ....they are very chatty in the morning! I hope they are back again this year. I live in the Connecticut suburbs, not sure why my brick got chosen but I'm glad it did :-)
You know about the Chapman Swifts in Portland, right? A month long spectacle, in residence nightly, a giant cloud of swifts slowly funnelling into a dormant coal chimney at an elementary school. Everyone brings a picnic and watches the show.
Sorry for second comment today this one unrelated to swifts.
My wife is reading a novel “Axiom’s End” by Lindsay Ellis and pointed me to this mother / daughter exchange on the daughter’s use of a $200 loan “I had to use it on gas” lied Cora, “and had another credit card bill I needed to pay off.” It continues —- “The truth was she had used the money on a Neko Case concert, her third of the year, but Demi didn’t need to know that.”
Damn good way to use a $200 loan from the mom’s I’d say.
We love swifts and have seen a pair swirling around at dusk here in Central Florida - of all places! And when we see a kite we practically slam the brakes on all activity to watch them in the air. (Also - we saw our first Baltimore Oriole at our feeder this year! Very rare down here. We suspect all the crazy weather chased them our way. When we posted seeing them we were doubted by all - but we have the photographic proof!)
We don’t have chimney swifts over here but swallows and I love to watch them fly and make sounds between the buildings and in the sky. We have this ”poem” in finnish that counts the months/days until summer by the arrival of different birds. Once you see swallows then you know the summer is here. 😊
I love it when the juncoes come to my little SoCal backyard, they are beautiful and badass bug hunters....
I live on an east coast lake... my favorite are the cormorants. They strike me as the stealthy military patrol, on alert & ready to protect their lake... the mallards, egrets, herons, turtles, bass & catfish. They swim, fly & rest in packs of twenty or thirty, their silky, sharp black beaks & wings especially striking en masse at sunrise or sunset. I never grow weary of the view from my kayak
I lived in Brighton, England for a time, and in the wintertime the starlings would congregate near the pier there and perform similar murmurations by the thousands, swooping and diving in enormous black clouds and then all going home to roost under the pier in one final enormous dive. It's about the only thing that made the 4pm sunsets bearable in the winter.
Now, back home in Texas, it's the yearly motion of caterpillars and butterflies that are my seasonal nature thrill. The swallowtail caterpillars have just finished pillaging the fennel I planted for them and have gone off to cocoon, while the monarchs are still months from arriving at my mistflowers to feed. Even in the city, it's a pulsating rhythm that feels nothing short of magical when I stop to think about it for a moment in the garden.
Thanks for all the birding posts. Chimney Swifts are like flying cigars. Particularly loved the roadrunner post. Maybe you can play Tarrytown Music Hall next May-Sept (last two NYC area visits were Brooklyn only) and see the Bobolinks at Croton Point Park. Real good numbers this year. I remember when you called out a great blue heron from Clearwater stage at Croton Point; our lamented lost festival on the Hudson.
Mobs of Roos in outer suburban Adelaide watching us poor saps drive by, Flying foxes on warm evenings shreeeking, pods of dolphins in the Port River as I drive to work. And those incredible hairy spiky caterpillars that appear in spring down here, to name a few see also Rosellas and Galahs squawking
I've never been fortunate enough to see a column of swifts, or the bats leaving the cavern, but I do always stop for nature. Once I happened upon a spider laying its eggs in my fruit bowl. Amazing! Right now, we have a loveliness-ess of ladybugs in our garden mostly nestled in and chilling out in our Mock Orange. The longer you look into the petals of the flowers, the more you see their little spotted forms and I may have spent an enormous amount of time chatting with them.
Starlings perform similar random art performances with their murmurations. I’m sure you’ve seen that on your travels.
Here in medieval France the swallows and bats have returned. I like walking through the rocky overpasses and stone walls and looking for the piles of shit that indicate a little nest overhead. I like the shrilling of the babies and the way the parents swoop in and just Hork some chow down their gullets. And it reminds me of watching the same rituals under the bridge in Humboldt park.