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June 10, 1962 - Chimney SwiftsChimney Swifts Exclusive Sunday Review Sketch. by Dennis Puleston of Brookhaven Focus, on Nature by Paul Stoutenburgh This week we are privileged to have a new guest writer who we hope in the future will become one of our regulars. An artist by profession, Judd Bennett of East Marion has much to offer us from his rich and colorful background. PS Once in a while everything about a bird is so distinctive that the name is neatly right. The Chimney Swift is well blessed in this way. You can tag them with- out miss -- identification is pain- less. This still holds true when you use the other names given this bat -like bird — Chimney Swallow — Chimney Bird — Chimney Bat and, perhaps the much older one of Chimney Sweep. The last is slightly misleading for if it sweeps, and it does, — it is the insect world that gets the sweep- ing. The "sweeping" is done in the midst of the swirling, buggy world teeming above the open -lands and the tree- covered countryside -- the cultivated fields and pastures are endlessly flown over for food. Farm lands are perhaps the most favored, and by preference the happy acres of the lazy tiller tops them all. The flights are Iona zigs aria bat -zany zags flown in errratic weaving courses - all slick maneuverings -- lacking something. If you happen to watch a low- flying bird and you see .smooth thrilling gracefulness, you are not with the Swifts - -- you are with the Swallows. The Chimney Swift makes, rich fine - voiced twitterings as it flies nearby going like the "avian mis- sile" it is in air -borne scooping attacks through those luck -less insects. Those bugs in the path of their intersecting flight- trails are doomed. They are instantly, a part of a hurtling digestive sys- tem dashing in pursuit ever on- ward. Some writers see them as "Flying- Cigars" -- an apt and very keenly worded observation. Having a short tail they appear tailless. The wings are obvious, narrow, long and curved with a stiff look. This bird has a life which is almost completely air- borne and they are a striking ex- ample of the adaption and the modification living animals make for a life within a restricted en- vironment. It is interesting to re- flect on such development, which in this instance, makes virtually impossible the taking of a Swift by any Falcon.. They live their whole "outside" life in the air -- even'to -their courtship, -- even, possibly their moment of death — and, even a part of their nesting duty. Ali involves flight. Even, the twigs needed for the nest, made cup - shaped in the chimneys, are obtained in flight for they are broken off by the bill and the feet in a strong swoop -in sally. The twigs are not gathered from the ground. Both of a pair work on the nest and during this time rainless dry days are needed. Should you see Swifts in this breeding activity at a date beyond mid - Spring, it has been a wet and drenched season. Rains, when wind - driven and heavy and unceasing, can dissolve the sticky saliva used - -- undoing all. Normally the mucous -Iike secretion formed in the mouth hardens and can withstand the wet periods. The chimneys chosen are snug. It is rarely one sees a Swift in the hand. During a hurricane several years back, six Chimney Swifts took refuge in my chim- ney. Two of them fluttered noisily in the large fireplace flue and when the winds died down took off. The remaining four fell through the length of a smaller flue into a heater connection and were trapped • helplessly. They vV;ro �,.inh� i' t, vi v.._uaxtixx} ..b. . ',.liC pipes had to be disconnected and the soot - covered birds removed one by one. I thought little of the add- ed trouble involved, because I in- tended to examine each with care before coming to the toss -off into the cleaner freedom of storm - washed air. Looking so carefully I found them to, indeed, be an odd little bird and.since that time I have felt a tender familiar ac- quaintance with ahem. There are but a handful of North American birds effected favorably and also, in turn, bene- fited by man. When man did change this continent, and he surely did, the birds were drastic- ally altered in many ways. Many of the staggering changes were a true turn for the better fdr the Chimney Swift. Times previous to the shift away from a forested vastness, when hollowed aged treees were numerous, the Chim- ney Swift had only this home. With the rearing of numberless chimneys, all made so perfectly similar, a shift to them was made. They were higher and saf- er, strickly upright„ with the re- quired roughened surface and but dimly lighted, ever so nicely pro- tective. Trees were forgotton — more and more chimneys appear- ed and the Swifts thrived. More are seen today than flew the skies of Colonial days. I will mention a far -off oddity which, . it seems, always has a mild intrigue and fascination for us — the Chinese Bird's Nest Soup -- it is a Swift who makes the treasured nest. The musilage- like substance involved is nothing more than the secretion used by the Oriental Swift in making its nest; — only this one leaves out the twigs and puts in more saI- via. It is merely softened and cooked down to a soup stock. The Swifts are beneficial to man. Should a huge chimney be sel- ected by the flock; this place is usually the night roost for the males and is used by them throughout the summer, the fledg- lings join later, coming alorig with the returning females. Swifts when sleeping maintain firm foot- holds along the rough - grained mortar ridges and use the short stiff tail feathers, bared on the ends to a barb, for their particu- lar perch- posture - of straight up. When the birds, spiral -fly inward for the night -time assembly there is a mad frolic over the roost, near the larger chimney tops this abruptly changes into a funnel- shaped mass, when, suddenly the drop -in starts. by one, with raised wings, the hundreds drop down and a pattern is quickly set -- a little below the top, side by side they nestle -up In rows and form from the top downward, down to the last in the dimmer depths. No collisions happen and no interfer- ence whatsoever occurs between individuals and this widly paced affair is often carried out in the dark of true night. Swifts prefer the half - light of dawn and the dim -out of twilight and are most active then, as well as during cloudy times. Thunder storms are ignored. These birds are rather fearless. On the credit side Swifts are admirable for they inflict no harm on any member of the avian world, they lack the quarrel trait and they give the best of care to sume billions of insects. All bug - their young. They, also, daily co- haters should love them. Since no lack of home -sites ex- for these good, birds in summer their range goes far into Canada. Their occupied area then swoops southward in a big embrace "map- wise" which includes Long Island prominently. We have many Swifts on the Island. Their range extends then-, southward on too Texas.. During the winter they are in the Amazon River Basin. The migration to Brazil goes winging over Central America and Haiti. We think they come north by about the same route in the not too early Spring. They come later because the insects must be flying for no other food is taken. The Tree Swallow is the only one of this family able to eat seeds. Happily for us many in the vast migrations going northward settle for the beauty of Long Island and go no farther. Our Long Island has the bugs. The heavenly skies of our cher- ished summer days are wonder- ful -- yet they, without this "winged cigar" would be duller. Find time to go out at a time when the barometric pressure has dropped and the insects have re- sponded by an inclination to fly lower over the earthern spanse and then watch for- the Chimney Swift at work for his dinner. It is -an all- blackish bird easily discov- ered, identified and enjoyed. There often will be Barn, Tree and Bank Swallows, flying with them. When you turn for back- ward trip to home you will be an expert - -- of some sort, too — even if it is neck- swiveling. FIELD OBSERVATIONS Laurence Ernest reports: Mecox — May 27 Knots Mecox — May 28 Woodcock Bridgehampton — May 29 Prairie Warblers Nashville Warblers Great - horned Owl Southampton - May 30 White- breasted Nuthatch Dennis Puleston reports: Brookhaven — May 25 Nighthawks (2) Brookhaven — May 27 Long - billed 'Marsh Wrens Fort Salonga — May 30 Connecticut Warbler Cold Spring Harbor — May 30 Yellow - throated Vireo Jamaica Bay Sanctuary — May Jamaica Bay Sanctuary — May 30 Mockingbird Glossy Ibis (12) Little Blue Heron Least Bittern Western Sandpipers (3) Snowy Egrets (20) Common Egrets (25) Shoveler