Biology, Life history

Description of the species:

Body measurements:

Size: 12-15 cm (5-6 inches)
Wingspan: 27-30cm (11-12 inches)
Weight: 17-30 g

Description

relatively small bird
Uniformly dark with sooty brown back; grayish brown breast and paler throat, chin and cheeks; black spot in front of eye
aerodynamic body
long, curved and pointed wings; small feet with long claws, very short tail. Their long wings and short legs swifts tend not to perch like most birds. Instead they use their long claws to cling to the walls of chimneys and other vertical surfaces.
flight: bat-like (wings held stiffly and beat rapidly), appear to beat each wing separately

No clear distinction between sex and stages.

Taxonomy:

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Aves
Order	Apodiformes
Family	Apodidae
Genus	Chaetura
Species	C. pelagica

Sound

High-pitched musical notes strung together into a rapid twitter. Click on the following link and you will be redirected to a page where the song is available: http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/231/_/Chimney_Swift.aspx

Range

GLOBAL RANGE:
The Chimney Swift is a migratory species. Its breeding range is essentially limited to Eastern North America and encompasses the East side of the Rocky Mountains from very edge of Saskatchewan eastward to Atlantic Coast and southward to Central Texas and Florida. It occasionally breeds in Southern California and possibly in Arizona and a few individuals may breed or remain in the area surrounding the Gulf of Mexico.

Swifts migrate in flocks and over winter in the upper Amazon Basin of South America, mainly in Peru, north-eastern Ecuador and North-western Brazil. Individuals have also been observed further south in Northern Chile.

CANADIAN RANGE: CS_range_ontario
Approximately 26% of Chimney Swifts breed in Canada. They breed in Eastern Saskatchewan, Southern Manitoba, Southern Ontario, Southern Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and probably Prince Edward Island.

In Ontario, the Chimney Swift breeds as far as the 49th parallel, though most birds are concentrated along the southern edge of the province. The most northerly recorded sighting of the birds was in the vicinity of Pickle Lake (51.4° latitude north). Historical records suggest that they formerly occupied much the same range as they do today, at least in the southern half of the province.

(From COSEWIC 2007)

Habitat

SUMMER HABITAT
No single type of habitat. They occur in sites offering possibilities for roosting, nesting and foraging: old forests with hollow trees, urban areas, caves, wetlands, rural areas... They require open area in order to forage. The proximity of nesting and roosting sites assessed during the Quebec Chimney Swift survey (1998-2002) stated that 95% of them (140/147) were located less than 1km from a body of water.

WINTERING HABITAT
Basically consists of river-edge forests, edge of tropical lowlands, evergreen forests, and second growth scrub. Swifts also occur in irrigated farmland, suburban and city centre zones.
On the Peruvian coast, the species regularly occurs up to 2500 meters and sometimes even up to 3000m. The criteria for roosting sites are the same as for the summer habitat.
The Chimney Swift's winter habitat preferences are still not very well known or documented.

NESTING AND ROOSTING HABITAT
The species looks for dark, sheltered spots with vertical surfaces that it can grip onto and attach its nest to. The entrance also needs to be large (>30cm) in order for ease of access. These requirements were mainly found in hollow trees and occasionally in cave walls and rocky crevices before the European settlement. With their arrival, the number of suitable natural sites greatly decreased. However, artificial structures were built (chimneys, barns, wells...) and Chimney Swifts rapidly adapted to these new available sites. The most commonly adopted site is a large (<30cm) chimney with walls made of brick that allow swifts to cling onto them. Church chimneys seem to fulfill the swifts requirements and are the main known sites used in Quebec (COSEWIC 2007).
Also, thermal conditions of roosts account for a large part of site choice. Ramsey (1970) showed that Chimney Swifts exhibit a condition which is far from homeothermous: the body temperature of the bird changes almost immediately with lowering ambient temperature and a direct relationship exists between environmental and body temperatures. Chimney Swifts usually prefer unused chimneys connected to the basement with a flow of warm air. In Quebec, a study revealed that the chimneys were abandoned below a threshold of 13°C.
Nesting sites are hard to locate because of the very secretive behaviour of the swifts as they approach the nest. However, roosting sites are much more easier to find, indeed, the large number of individuals that a roosting site can host eases the task!

Food

Chimney Swift forages essentially on flying insects with a large amount of ephemeroptera and diptera (e.g. mosquitoes).

Behaviour and cool facts

Gregarious: large number of swifts can roost together in a single site (sometimes hundreds and hundreds of individuals gather). However, only one pair nests in a site. The presence of other pairs is rarely tolerated.
Chimney Swifts fly almost constantly except when they nest or they roost at night. They forage, drink and bath in flight: they pursue insects by catching them with their beak. They drink by opening their beak and skimming the surface while they fly over water. They glide down, smacking the surface with their breast, and then bouncing up and shaking the water from their plumage as they fly away.
They are mostly active around dusk and dawn.
They feed in flocks or alone.
Capacity of torpor (Ramsey 1970): Chimney Swifts can slow down their metabolism (similar to bear hibernation) to pass over unusual cold period.

Reproduction

Period	From the end of April or the beginning of May until the end of July.
Nest site	In a shadowy area that offers possibilities to cling to the walls. Also require thermal isolation (not too warm, not too cold).
Nest type	Half saucer or cup-shaped bracket of woven small twigs held together with saliva.
Egg description	White. Albumen with peculiar glue like texture.
Clutch size	1-7 eggs, on average 3-5
Incubation	19-20 days
Condition of Hatching	Naked and helpless
Fledging	30 days
Times	Can nest more than once per season

Conservation status:

IUCN: Least Concern.
US ESA: none
SARA: Threatened
COSEWIC: Threatened (2007)
Ministry of Natural resources - Ontario: Threatened

Similar species:

- Often mistaken for swallow species whereas according to the classical taxonomy, they are not closely related: the Chimney Swift belongs to the Apodiformes genus and the swallows are grouped under the Passeriformes genus.
- The numerous and unsynchronized wing flaps make the species confoundable with some species of bat. This is especially notable at the sunset when the species enters a chimney by hundreds and hundreds.

Sources:
- Birds of Nova Scotia: http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/nsbirds/bns0223.htm
- Cadman M.C., D.A. Sutherland, G.G. Beck, D. Lepage and A.R. Couturier. The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario (2001-2005). Bird Studies Canada, Environment Canada, Ontario Field Ornithologists, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and Ontario Nature.
- Cornell lab of Ornithology: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Chimney_Swift.html
- COWEWIC. 2007. Assessment and Status Report on the Chimney Swift chaeture pelagic in Canada, threatened 2007. Committee On the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada. Ottawa. 49pp