‘Swift Night’ a hit at Housy

FALLS VILLAGE — On the picturesque evening of Thursday, Aug. 21, the fields behind Housatonic Valley Regional High School were alive with the typical sounds of pre-season sports: the piercing whine of a coach’s whistle, the thud of shoulder pads crashing together on the football field, and the gruff commands from a captain. However, a different type of noise droned on behind the clamor from the gridiron: the twittering of chimney swifts, who swooped and pirouetted overhead before settling into their seasonal residence in the school’s long-defunct chimney.

There was also the addition of about 30 ornithologists, conservationists, volunteers and other bird-curious members of the public who had gathered to watch the swifts’ mesmerizing evening ritual and learn more about the unique species. The occasion was Swift Night, an annual event hosted by the Sharon Audubon Center that highlights the built-in connection between our region’s central educational institution and bird conservation.

“This is the sort of thing we live for,” said Eileen Fielding, director of Sharon Audubon Center, during her opening remarks as more birds flew in from the horizon to join the acrobatic group above. Despite two bald eagles perched above a distant field and the occasional shouts and laughter from a sports team finishing practice, the swifts’ agile display above held the group’s gaze skyward. “The swifts are the show,” said Fielding.

The HVRHS chimney is a “very important chimney for our regional swifts,” said Bethany Sheffer, naturalist and volunteer coordinator at Sharon Audubon, during her remarks. During their annual fall migration, fleeing the impending cold and heading for balmier climes in the Amazon River Basin, traveling groups of swifts roost collectively in large, defunct industrial chimneys for several weeks at a time. Each autumn, Sharon Audubon releases several dozen swifts it has rehabilitated at the chimney to join the migrating pack.

HVRHS science teacher Kurt Johnson has acted as the school’s liaison with Sharon Audubon for several years on the swift project, most recently installing an antenna to track newly-tagged birds as they pass near the school, either on their migration path or if they happen to return to settle in the area over the summer.

This year, Sharon Audubon placed tracking devices — “kind of like a backpack,” said Mackenzie Hunter, wildlife rehabilitation assistant at the Center – on about twenty of its rehabilitated swifts, joining a “continent wide effort” to “pinpoint” where to focus conservation efforts, explained Fielding.

Johnson has participated closely in Sharon Audubon’s efforts both with his family and with HVRHS’s student-led Local Environmental Action Group, whose motto is “thing globally, act locally.” He said the swift migration and tracking project offers students an opportunity to see “a tangible example of science in action.”

Swifts are a unique species in that they have both flourished and suffered from human intervention on the landscape. Unlike most other commonly seen bird species in New England, known as passerine or perching birds, swifts are not able to stand upright and can only cling to vertical surfaces. Prior to European colonization, they built their nests on the inner walls of hollow trees, however their numbers expanded when chimneys started popping up on the landscape.

Now, as out-of-use chimneys are being torn down en masse, these distinctive birds are losing their human-built homes while further development eats up the rest of their habitat. Sharon Audubon reports that their numbers have declined by nearly 70%.

Sharon Audubon is one of New England’s foremost rehabilitation centers for chimney swifts, taking in birds each summer from nests that have fallen into fireplaces or have otherwise been injured or abandoned. Sunny Kellner, who has been the wildlife rehabilitation manager at the Center for a decade, says it’s usually the first muggy and humid week that the hatchlings start coming in, the saliva-bound nests literally melted by the heat.

The Center also offers consultations for homeowners who find uninjured birds, which can be safely installed back into the chimney. Kellner said they make great houseguests by eating thousands of insects, and their nests have zero structural or functional effect on the chimney.

For Swift Night, Sharon Audubon staff brought out a surprise: over 40 rehabilitated swifts to be released into flock gyrating and twirling above the HVRHS chimney. Volunteers lined up to let the birds fly, holding their small bodies in gloved hands before giving a gentle toss. The birds took a moment to find their wings before giving a few powerful beats and banking upwards to join the rest of the aerialists.

As the last light faded from the sky, the swirling mass of hundreds of swifts slowly thinned as birds dove headfirst into the chimney, as if “sucked in by an invisible vacuum,” as Sheffer put it. Several night owls dwindled in the twilight, feasting on a late-night snack of insects, but before long the last stragglers had dropped into the vast brick chimney for another night’s rest.