Does your fireplace sound like a cicada nest? You forgot to put a cover over the chimney. The swifts are back! The chimney swift in flight can best be described as a "cigar with wings." It is a fireplace dust black bird with long, slightly curved stiff wings and no apparent tail. It does not appear to beat its wings in unison but alternately (optical illusion.) In flight, they make loud ticking noises. They eat insects "on the wing" which include a lot of mosquitoes (I love 'em for that!). They winter in the upper Amazon basin and spend the spring in your chimney. The nest is made of twigs stuck together with a glue-like saliva produced by mamma swift. She lays four to five white eggs that are hatching even as we speak. The babies stay in the chimney about one month, singing hungrily the whole time. Mom will feed the chicks a partially digested ball of insects and make an average of forty trips in and out each night. Unless you need to sit by a cozy fireplace drinking hot cider in the 100-degree heat, just be patient. They will leave and then you can put a cover on your chimney.

The swifts will start eyeing your chimney in early May A well-anchored, welded wire cover will prevent entrance by most animals and you will save yourself headaches later. Most pest control businesses and some hardware stores have ready-made covers that will do the job.

I once visited the ultimate bird lover. On the way to the door, I noticed a chimney on the roof. But once inside, I couldn't find a fireplace. Naturally, I asked the obvious question and, to my surprise, she said it was a phony chimney put there just so that the swifts would have a place to build nests. Oh boy!

Contact Jim Dunlap, director of the Holifield Science Learning Center of Plano Independent School District, 3100 Shiloh Road, at 469-752-1194 or jdunlap@pisd.edu.

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