chimney_swifts ovenbird They live their lives almost entirely airborne. Their bodies aren’t built for touching the earth. They cannot perch, but only cling to the vertical stone surfaces of the towering vaults that hold them at night. I am outside at dusk waiting for them to come home. As the light fails I see the flock circling, preparing to dive. One makes a few approaches before tucking its wings and plummeting into the dark of a chimney attached to an old brick school. Others follow, seeming to fall from the air. Delight raises goosebumps on my arms. There’s a very specific joy that comes from being in the right place at just the right time. It only takes ten minutes for this whole group of swifts to careen into their evening resting place. The population has declined ninety percent since 1970. These birds are some of the last of their kind, and have adapted to live in open chimneys, an architectural feature that has seen a steep decline. Bylaws often dictate that new homes can’t be built with wood burning fireplaces, which means no chimneys. And the chimneys that do exist as relics of the past tend to be closed off at the top to prevent animals and debris from getting in. Chimney Swifts are dependent on the structures humans built in an attempt to keep warm. When we invented central heating we destroyed an entire habitat and, in turn, a strange and beautiful relationship between ourselves and our avian visitors. Swifts are migratory, which means that they return to their breeding grounds in the spring and summer when fireplaces are not being used. They build their nests in the cool dark shafts, using glue-like saliva to adhere sticks to the walls in a shape like a cupped palm. Our human lives made room for this beauty and our human lives will spell its end. The final swifts find home and as they gather their courage to fall I think I know what they feel in the moment when their bodies are suddenly motionless in the air right before gravity grabs hold and makes them into arrows. It’s the feeling we all get when the bottom falls out of our hearts, it’s the precarious moment right before the point of no return, it’s the feeling of folding our wings in close and throwing ourselves at whatever feels like home, no matter how small, unlikely, fleeting, or rare. It’s the feeling of falling in love with the world, one reckless tumble at a time. 250731 what's it to you? who go blather from