If you’re living in a house with a chimney, you’re already familiar with the chimney swift (Chaetura pelagica), a cigar-shaped bird that inhabits your chimney with several companions each year.
Did You Know?
The chimney swift is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 that protects 800 migratory birds.
At dusk, groups of chimney swifts dart across the skies of neighborhoods and towns before returning to their roosts at dawn, descending into the tower of a chimney in a rush.
Did you know you need a federal permit to remove the chimney swift from your chimney? Don’t worry about looking into that permit now-chimney swifts generally leave Tennessee for the warmer climates of South America around mid-October.
You’ll be seeing them migrate on to their tropical winters this month, but they’ll be back in the area around March. Chimney swifts are dark grey in color and shaped so distinctly that their silhouettes can easily be picked out of the sky at dusk. Don’t think you’ll be able to spot a chimney swift any other way. They are one of the most airborne birds out there.
Tip
One way to prevent chimney swifts from nesting in your brick chimney over the summer is by remembering to place your chimney cap on when the weather gets warm.
Chimney swifts spend all their time in the air except for when roosting or nesting. Could you imagine walking around all day? That has to be pretty tiring, but even when chimney swifts need to bathe, they just touch their bellies to the surface of water while flying by. That’s also how they feast-snapping up bugs in flight. Chimney swifts don’t perch, considering they live in chimneys and not trees. Instead, they use their super sharp talons to cling to the brick sides of chimneys, where they use their cement-glue like saliva to form nests.