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Printed From Acorn-Online.com Redding Pilot by Rachel Kirkpatrick
About three years ago, Redding resident David Brooks built a faux wood chimney off the back of his barn on his property, in order to attract the Chimney Swifts that used to frequent the area. “I like those particular birds a lot,” Mr. Brooks said. “They fly in formations, they’re great mosquito eaters, and they’re an interesting sort of aerial bird; nice to watch.” The Chimney Swift, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is small and dark with a cylindrical body. They are recognizable because they do not sit on perches; they use long claws to cling to the walls of chimneys and other vertical surfaces. Construction with the European settlement of North America provided increased availability of new nest sites, according to the Cornell Lab. But as chimney designs have changed, and chimneys have been covered, nest sites have decreased, which may be a factor in their declining population. Mr. Brooks, who grew up on the property, said he can remember the Chimney Swifts they used to have there, flying in formation over the yard. “Every year they used to fly over, but I haven’t seen them in two or three years; they don’t even come over, but in the old days they used to come feeding,” he said. “They’d come flying in twos and threes, and they do fly in formations which means something to them; they make a nice twittering sound.” With the hope of bringing back the Chimney Swift, Mr. Brooks decided to build a chimney for them. Anyone can do it, he said, it just has to be 15-feet high and open on the bottom, but screened so that raccoons cannot get up into it. “The problem with the Chimney Swift is that only one will roost in a chimney, but a lot of them, when they migrate, will come,” Mr. Brooks said. “I have only one chimney, and they’re not coming.” But if there are enough chimneys around, the Chimney Swifts should come, he said. “You can build a pretty one in the garden,” he added. “They only have to be so high, and you can plant morning glories around them.” © Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers |
