A couple of weeks ago, we heard a little “peep, peep, peep” coming from the chimney. Low on the list of things we needed to pay attention to. Mostly just at dawn and dusk - I thought it kinda cute. Figured in a couple of weeks the birds would fledge and we could have the chimney cleaned and capped.
A week or so later, the birds seemd to have morphed into some kind of pteradactyls. They are hissing at each other and banging around there all hours of the day and night. Was driving my wife crazy, so she called a company re: humane removal.
Well whaddya know - I got chimney swifts! And they are protected by the migratory bird treaty or somesuch. Illegal to remove them until they choose to migrate sometime in the next couple of months.
Looking on the bright side, I now have a new bird on my life list…
It has been cool - maybe I’ll just start up a nice smokey fire…
My sister has been studying the chimney swift for the last two years while completing her Masters and a subsequent Phd. The eventual goal is to encourage the birds to revert to nesting in nature as opposed to being dependent on man-made structures as the number of open masonry chimneys diminishes.
Probably not soon enough for you, but if you have any questions about them, I do know someone who is an expert.
Still don’t care for the SOBs when I’m in my family room and hear them fighting in my chimney. But must admit that when I was workin gin the yard Sat a.m. and saw them swooping about, gulping up insects, made it a little easier to wait for migration time.
Yeah - such a thought actually crossed my mind. But I’d feel so stupid if I went thru the effort and expense to maintain a chimney for them and it went unused…
They seem to have left the day before yesterday. We put on a cap, as I heard someone say birds migrating from further north might take up residence for the winter.
