The Chimney Swift

The nest is made of small, short twigs
glued together with saliva.

       Whirling flocks of chimney swifts above the housetop form a familiar sight throughout eastern North America.

       The chimney swift rarely if ever comes to rest on the ground. Most of its waking hours are spent on the wing "sweeping" the air clear of insects. On late summer evenings flocks of swifts sail and circle in huge wheeling groups, possibly giving the young birds training or  exercise in preparation for the long flight to their winter home. At the end of one of these spectacular flights the entire group usually funnels into a chimney for the night. The rapidity and accuracy with which the birds disappear into the cavity are amazing. It has been estimated that they enter their roost at a rate of fifteen per second.

       Swifts build their nests of bits or twigs glued to the side of the chimney. The twigs are gathered while the bird is flying through the treetops. Most bird students agree that the swift grasps the tips of dead branches in its feet and breaks off a small piece. The twigs are glued together with the bird's saliva. The saliva hardens and fixes the twigs together securely.

       Both parents incubate the eggs. The young are nearly naked and are blind when hatched, but very soon the spines on the end of the tail appear and the young swift is able to leave the nest and crawl about hanging on to the rough surface of the chimney and propping itself up by the tail.

       Chimney swifts originally built their nests in hollow trees. The incoming settlers cut down the trees, but the swifts adapted themselves to man's ways and utilized the ever-increasing number of chimneys, although nests have also been found in barns and attics and on the sides of wells and cisterns.

       For years bird students have wondered about the winter home of the chimney swift. This common summer resident of the United States leaves the country every fall late in September and returns the middle of April. Its whereabouts during its absence has long been a mystery. Bird banders - bird students who attach small metal bands to the legs of captured birds with the hope that someone may return the band, if the bird is captured again or found dead - have especially hoped for information as to the migration routes and the winter home of the swift.

       Not until August, 1944, did we obtain a clue to the winter home of the swift. At that time a Tennessee bird student received from the Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States the returns on some of his banded birds. Five of his swifts had been captured in Peru. Thirteen birds from the United States had been taken 3,000 miles away, south of the equator. One of the birds had been banded in 1937 and had probably made seven round trips between Peru and Tennessee. Competent ornithologists had predicted that the swifts would be found wintering in the Amazon region, and these birds were recovered near the headwaters of that river. 

Joni Denker filmed the Chimney Swifs entering

 the roost at Washington Elementary in Janesville, WI.