Folks, due to a cool tip from a good friend, I went and watched the Chimney Swift birds do their nightly ritual in Banner Elk last night, which you can see in the video below. What is unique about Chimney Swifts is this - This enigmatic little bird spends almost its entire life airborne. When it lands, it can’t perch like other birds—so it clings to vertical walls inside chimneys or in hollow trees or caves. So...every night the Swifts turn into a swirling flock at Lees McRae College here - the highest altitude college campus east of the Mississippi River - and they all eventually fly into a particular chimney at dusk to spend the night. When I got there, I had the Chimney Swifts all to myself. Around 7:30pm or so, they began to gather and fly in a 70-foot wide counterclockwise circle in the air and then by groups of five or ten...or sometimes individually - they would dive into one specific chimney and disappear for the night. After about 20 minutes or so, the flock of thousands dwindled down to hundreds...and then soon there were but five or six still left in the air. It appeared that there was one final Swift yet to take the plunge, and before he or she did so, it was flying erratically on its own in oddball non-circular patterns before diving into the chimney. But then, out of nowhere, there were two stragglers who came from the east and did three quick circles before flying inside the chimney and the phenomenon was complete. Soon, they will leave the High Country and migrate south. Very cool! Take a gander here - there are three parts to the video.; https://youtube/watch?v=1u7NzjOZdn0
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 17:51:55 +0000
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