In recent years, at sunset in late September and early October, hundreds of swifts can be seen funneling into the tiny opening of the street side chimney at Middleburg's circa 1824 Noble House (that treasure of a brick building on the Northwest corner of Route 50 and N. Madison Street, west of the Red Fox Inn.)

These swifts are the descendants of birds that made this same stop on their way to Peru or Brazil for almost two centuries.

It was by chance that the swifts moved in with humans with the massive transformation of America's natural landscape, but we need to plan for both their survival, as well as ours.

A Swift History Lesson

European settlers to this continent eliminated vast virgin forests with hollow trees that were the homes of tiny cigar-shaped birds that came to be called Chimney Swifts.

The swifts survived by mere chance. They moved into the rough textured interiors of the settlers' masonry chimneys and built their delicate saliva-pointed twig nests in spring and summer, raised their chicks, and then flew south to winter in the Amazon.

Swifts return to the same roost year after year, and now, more than ever, they need all our chimneys.

Why?

Chimney swifts are both beautiful and very valuable birds. They feed almost exclusively on flying insects.

They belong to a group of nineteen species of swifts, swallows, fly-catchers, and nightjars classified as "aerial insectivores." This eclectic group of skilled aerial acrobats includes: Phoebes, Barn Swallows, Purple Martins, Whip-poor-wills, Eastern wood pewees, and Eastern Kingbirds.

The "salliers" among these "aerial insectivores" sit on a perch and swoop out to catch prey. The Swifts, however are "coursers," who patrol the sky every night taking prey on the wing from the estimated 3 billion insects (spiders, dragonflies, mayflies, etc.) passing above us in a 0.6-mile-high band of air on typical spring or summer day.

All these birds have experienced a precipitous population decline in recent decades in large part thanks to exponential human population growth concurrent with industrialized farming, chemical and pesticide pollution, climate change, light pollution, and unprecedented suburban sprawl. Canada has already listed the Chimney Swift and Barn Swallow as Endangered.

Concerted and strategic individual and civic actions can keep this tragedy from happening here.

When we save historic towns and landscapes we save wildlife habitat, build community, and we also create sustainable economic development opportunities through tourism and the arts.

The Virginia Piedmont prides itself on its historic landscape, yet each year suburban sprawl continues, chewing up ground and all significant environmentally sound conservation economic opportunities at the same time.

How?

The old stone and brick buildings in Middleburg, Warrenton, Leesburg and other historic towns and villages around us are both prime chimney swift and human habitat.

Happily, authentic and unique historic and environmentally endowed regions like the Piedmont tend to attract people who are able to contribute to economic development in unique places while simultaneously preserving them.

Historic property owners can and do help a lot, for example, by NOT capping off their chimneys and allowing the swifts to nest there.

Uncapped chimneys are also key stopover roosts for southbound swifts.

Help as much as you can. The Swifts need us. And we need them.