#Chimney October 5

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Last Wednesday night I got to observe nature perform an amazing feat. Thousands of birds, right at sunset began to descend into a CHIMNEY with the motion of tornado.

My wife and I had joined friends Carey and Joanna Read for dinner at Adeilo’s in Lumberton NC. We got finished around 7:15 PM and came out to see thousands of birds circling and chirping loudly over the restaurant. People leaving and entering the restaurant including chef/owner Adeilo Cruz were speculating they were bats. I was quick to inform everyone they were CHIMNEY Swifts.

What you cannot see in this photo of Adeilo’s are the buildings located to the left of the alleyway. Perched high up on one of the building is a CHIMNEY. My experience with CHIMNEY Swifts came 12 years ago when they used my CHIMNEY for two days in October. That visit peek interest so I did research on them. Here is what I found out.

CHIMNEY Swifts

They are long-distance migrants and do not have the ability to perch. They have to cling to the inside of a chimney, cave, or hollowed out tree.

Chimney Swifts migrate to South America each winter flying across the Gulf of Mexico or skirting it along the Texas coast (a route they’re more likely to take in spring than fall). North Carolina is a popular location to observe CHIMNEY Swifts in the fall.

Many of these migrating birds use one of three distinct flyways: the Atlantic coast, the east side of the Appalachians, and the Mississippi River. They fly high in the sky during the day and roost in CHIMNEYS at night including the one adjacent to Adeilo’s. They must have read good reviews on his menu at Trip Advisor.

Chimney Swifts breed in urban and suburban habitats across the eastern half of the United States and southern Canada. During migration they forage in flocks over forests and open areas and roost in chimneys at night. They spend the winter in the upper Amazon basin of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Brazil, where they are found in open terrain and on roosts in chimneys, churches, and caves.

Chimney Swifts spend their lives airborne, except when they are roosting or on the nest. .At the end of summer they gather into large groups to migrate to South America. During migration, as many as 10,000 swifts may circle in a tornado-like flock at dusk and funnel into a roosting chimney to spend the night. The lives of these widespread urban birds are surprisingly unstudied, because of their inaccessible nesting and roosting sites and their aerial lifestyle.

Here is a video of what a tornado of CHIMNEY Swifts looks like. It was a miracle of nature that I got to observe on West 3rd Street in Lumberton NC