This story originally published online in The 9th Street Journal.
It’s Tuesday evening at the Velvet Hippo’s rooftop bar. From the wooded deck, a few dozen hipster bargoers admire a picture-perfect view of downtown Durham: City Hall, churches, and restaurants illuminated by warm street lights, folks sprinkled on the brick-laden sidewalks of West Orange Street, green trees speckled with orange, hinting at their incoming autumnal costume.
Perfect, until they hear the discordant chirps that quickly evolve into a long, drawling screech. Then they look up to the periwinkle-and-pink skies, where hundreds of birds, funneling into a tornado above their heads, slowly swoop into the chimney next door.
As the sun sets and the swarm of birds descend, the night’s “bird drama” has begun.
Specialists in ‘sight fidelity’
Late September to early October is the migration season of the chimney swifts, small birds belonging to the swift family that roost inside chimneys, gripping the lined bricks with their small talons.
The New Hope Bird Alliance, a chapter of the Audubon Society for Durham, Orange, and Chatham counties, hosted an annual chimney swift birdwatching event at the Velvet Hippo, which has a perfect view of the M&F Bank chimney, one of the birds’ favorite spots to roost.
As the first birds began to dot the sky, former New Hope Bird Alliance president and longtime member Bo Howes, 60, repping his green “aerial insectivores” shirt from the club, introduced the chimney swifts to the crowd.
The group contained a collection of avid birdwatchers, donned in bird-themed shirts and hats, and curious Durhamites who caught this annual event over their evening drinks.
“There should be lots of them coming in, and they come each year. It’s one of the typical qualities of chimney swifts because they have ‘sight fidelity’: they come to the same chimney year after year,” said Howes.
‘They’re gonna mob him’
The birds historically roosted in hollow trees, but switched to chimneys centuries ago as landscapes became more urban, Howes said. In this autumn migration, the birds move in large groups, while in the spring, they move in breeding pairs, he said.
Howes also explained why they cannot roost on flat surfaces.
“They have terrible feet. They’re tiny, and they don’t work very well,” said Howes. “But inside a chimney or a tree, they just go down and hang on [vertically]. Their talons just hang on and they let go to fly.”
Current group president Carol Hamilton, 72, organized the event. This was Hamilton’s third or fourth chimney swift event, following her recent journey into birding and involvement with the New Hope Bird Alliance.
Her work at the alliance is at the crux of her interest in birds and her interest in conservation, and she aims to show Durhamites the connection between the two.
“We all talk about conservation, but it’s just such a broad term. Like, what does that mean?” said Hamilton.
The alliance focuses on the decline of bird populations, especially endangered species like the swifts, Hamilton said.
“So it might be people who have us come to their yard, and we teach them [that] this is a native plant, this is an invasive plant in your yard,” said Hamilton. “And don’t use things that kill insects.
“All of us depend on the insects being healthy. Especially these guys,” she said, pointing to the birds above her head.
‘They’re gonna mob him’
During chimney swift events at the Velvet Hippo, two things are certain, Hamilton and Howes said: the birds will try to roost in M&F Bank’s chimney, and a hawk—usually a sharp-shinned hawk, according to Howes—will invade the migration event. Birds are quite predictable, Hamilton says.
Half an hour into the event, a lurking brown bird, much bigger than the hundreds of swifts, zoomed over the rooftop to perch upon the swifts’ preferred chimney. A hawk, a bird that notoriously feasts on smaller birds like the swifts, was out searching for dinner.
The tornado around the chimney split into sporadic, swirling circles as the swifts scattered to avoid the hungry predator. Screams erupted from the crowd on the rooftop in a futile attempt to scare off the hawk.
Some swifts fled the scene to search for another chimney, but a few dared to outrace the hawk and try to roost before being caught. The hawk “swiftly” caught a victim in its beak, to the dismayed yells of the crowd.
“They’re gonna mob him,” said Hamilton.
And—as predicted—the fearless remainder of the birds circled in, mimicking the screams of the crowd and mobbing the hawk until it left the chimney, settling uncomfortably on the other side of the street..
“Bird drama,” Hamilton and Howes called it.
By the conclusion of the night’s “drama,” the sky had shifted to cobalt blue, and only a few swifts remained gliding. A few tentatively swirled around, barely discernible against the night sky, before spiraling into the chimney. They would likely continue their swirling and roosting over the course of the next few evenings, Hamilton said, but they had finished for the night.
The crowd reveled in the aftermath over cocktails, under the patio lights that warmed the wooden walls and accents of red furniture. One attendee revealed that he had been pooped on amidst the madness.
Leanne Renee, 26, a recent Durham arrival, began her birding journey in Florida, where she is from.
“I got into birding in the Everglades area because we had a good core amount down there…, ” she said. “But coming here, I’ve just been so amazed by the amount of birds that I’ve just never seen before.”
She has lived in Durham for only a few months, and this was her first attendance at a major birding event. Renee came “looking for other bird people” with a stack of stickers featuring a cardinal on a green, leafy branch. As the crowds dispersed, she continued handing out the stickers to other birdwatchers.
The sky faded to black. Swifts stowed away in local chimneys, and the only birds left were Renee’s two-dimensional cardinals, scattered across the bar tables.
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