Balmy weather returned to Missouri earlier this week and with it came the chimney swifts. After wintering in Central and South America, these flying cigars return to the U.S. and southern Canada to breed and can be found in most areas east of the Rockies. They were a week late this year, no doubt delayed by the powerful cold front of early April.
Often mistaken for bats, chimney swifts roost in hollow trees, chimneys and abandoned buildings but spend most of the day on the wing, feasting on insects. Come dusk, their forays increase in frequency as mosquitos and other flying insects ascend above the trees. Cruising over our cities and suburbs and communicating with a banter of high-pitched chirps, the swifts resemble squadrons of fighter jets. Their rapid flight is a sequence of fluttering wings and glides, straifing the sky in synchronized formations before veering apart to dive at their unwary targets. Within a week, they will be joined by their larger, more deliberate cousins, the common nighthawks.
