For the past few days I’ve been out in the back yard trying to track down as many of the abundant damselflies as I can (four species so far: fragile and Rambur’s forktails, and Everglades and southern sprites). All this time in the great outdoors has been accompanied by some great natural soundtracks—the piercing call of the cardinal, the ever-so-slightly less piercing but much more varied song of the mockingbird, the raucous screeching of the parakeets as they do their flybys. But more enjoyable than all of those songs has been the nearly constant twitter twitter tweet of the chimney swifts overhead. There’s no disguising their return to our latitudes; the skies are simply full of their uplifting tweeting.
Last year, almost to the day, my home office was graced by a lost and confused swift that had made its way down my disused chimney and popped out on the inside. I was so pleased to be able to document that occurrence with photos (see the post here). Well, Sunday, Cinco de Mayo 2013, saw a repeat of this occurrence, but with our whole family home to see it. We were out in the family room watching YouTube videos and the Marlins game (they won!) when all of a sudden a swift shot around the corner, played peekaboo with our ceiling fan, and tried to escape through our glass doors (without success). We tried in vain to usher it to an exit, but it vanished back into the part of the house where the chimney is, and since we couldn’t find a trace of it, we assumed it had gone back up the chimney.
But a couple of hours later, it came back out to the family room. This time, the boys and I were outside, but Marcella was inside and had the presence of mind to open all the doors. Eventually it found the exit, and both of us cheered heartily. (The boys were too busy playing with the hose in the sandbox.)
So yay! Two years in a row our house has been deemed worthy of a close inspection by Chaetura pelagica. Still haven’t heard any indication that our chimney is inhabited, but I’m holding out hope! (And it’s the only thing that’s keeping me from knocking this chimney down and putting something more practical in my tiny little office.)
[UPDATE: A day later and now I have photos. Don’t know whether this is the original bird, or a second one, but as I was picking up some of the kids’ toys upstairs, I heard the now-familiar whirr of giant flying cigar wings, and sure enough, a swift had made its way up our stairs and into the laundry basket on the landing. With great presence of mind, I grabbed a baby blanket and tried to herd it into a grabbable spot, which I did, sort of:
As I was carrying it downstairs to release it, I tried to take a few photos, but, as with last year’s experience, it is just plain hard to take pictures of a fragile little thing that you’re trying to keep calm by covering its eyes with a blanket. Here’s one that sort of turned out:
I got it outside and removed what I thought was just enough blanket that I could keep hold of it and still grab a shot or two, but it was not to be. As I was trying to unhook a snag of the blanket from one of its teeny little claws, it took matters into its own wings and flapped like mad to get out of there. I guess wandering around in a big enclosed space, bonking into windows and television screens was more than it had in mind when it explored our little chimney…]