A swift count

Are you sitting down? Good. That's how you can help one of Minnesota's most amazing birds, the aptly named chimney swift.

In August and September, Audubon Minnesota is holding a Chimney Swift Sit and needs volunteers like you and me to pull up our lawn chairs and watch the skies.

First, a little background.

This bird's name is particularly well chosen. They truly are fast fliers, hitting more than 100 miles per hour at times, and they really do have an affinity for chimneys, especially the old-fashioned, masonry kind.

Before humans began building chimneys, the birds used to roost in hollow trees. But as forests were cleared, they adopted the next best thing: the long, dark structures we built to vent our fireplaces and furnaces. Unlike songbirds, the feet of chimney swifts aren't suited for sitting on branches. They need dark, vertical places to cling. So they roost in chimneys at night, using their saliva to stick twigs to the walls to form their nests.

Most of us take little notice of these odd little birds, which have been described as flying cigars, because of their stubby bodies, short tails and long, narrow wings. With their fluttery flight and the insect-like twittering sound they make as they fly, they're often confused for bats. These birds are almost always in motion, scooping up mosquitoes and other flying insects, splashing across the surface of a lake to drink, filling the sky with their chattering call.

Years ago, people used to gather on summer nights to watch the spectacular display that swifts made as they swooped, swirled and called above their roosting chimneys. As darkness fell, there could be as many as 1,000 swifts swirling overhead, then they'd descend into a large chimney in a rush as if pulled by a giant vacuum.

These days, it's more of a challenge to find a nighttime roost because the right kind of chimneys are in short supply. We're building safer, metal-lined chimneys and topping them with caps, which limit the number of sites where these social birds can cling to sleep and raise their young. There are still some old-fashioned masonry chimneys out there, and swifts do find them and put on their show at dusk. But the population of this dun-colored little bird has plummeted 50 percent in the past four decades.

That's why Audubon wants to get a good count of them. And you can help. All you need to do is scout out a home, school, church or office in your area that has a masonry chimney where swifts gather at dusk. Then, choose one evening between Aug. 7 to 9 and/or Sept. 11 to 13, sit down and count the swifts as they gather.

There's more information and a simple reporting form at mn.audubon.org. (Click on Chimney Swift Sit.) If you need more information, contact Audubon's Ron Windingstad at rwindingstad@audubon.org or 651-739-9332.

It may be the start of a new kind of night out for neighborhoods, as we sit down on a summer's evening to add to the pool of knowledge about an odd little bird.

Val Cunningham, a St. Paul nature writer, bird surveyor and field trip leader, can be reached at valwrites@comcast.net.

SWIFT SOUNDS

Hear their call at www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chimney_Swift/sounds.

OTHER WAYS TO HELP SWIFTS

• Have your chimney cleaned in early March, before the swifts return from their winter home in South America.

• If you have a masonry or flue-tile chimney, consider keeping the top open and the damper closed from March through October to allow swifts to roost and nest.

• If you have a metal-lined chimney, add a cap to prevent swifts and other birds and wildlife from getting trapped inside.

• Join the North American Chimney Swift Nest Site Research Project at www.concentric.net/~DWA/page6.html.

• Volunteer with Audubon Minnesota to build chimney swift towers.