Change of Scenery

and my ongoing journey to spot a chimney swift

Last year, I fell in love with chimney swifts. After my mother sent me an article about a town in upstate New York, a short drive from where she grew up, where the swifts returned annually on May 6th to a massive festival.

We visited the town and the small schoolhouse museum which the town historian opened up for us on a weekend. The chimney where the birds used to nest has since been torn down and the birds haven’t really returned. I spent last November working on a novel about the swifts and a young woman who grew up in that town, left home after a terrible accident, and returned the same year the chimney was destroyed.

I watched videos of the swifts, circling that chimney and other chimneys, to write and also because I was fascinated with how they sleep and bathe while in flight, and perch and build their nest on the side of the brick, and can’t land on a flat horizontal surface. But I had never seen them in real life.

Well I probably had, but I don’t generally count seeing something unless I know in the moment what I saw.

I went looking for them around Pittsburgh. Patrick and I drove to some of the swift towers built by the Audubon Society around sunset to see if we could catch them returning home to nest for the evening. We drove to nearby parks and I looked for uncapped chimneys everywhere we went. But we never saw them and I sort of lost hope.

For a bird that is very common, that people around me in Pittsburgh said they saw all the time overhead, I could not find them.

I had almost forgotten about them all together over the winter when they take up residence in the air above the Caribbean and the northern countries of South America. Until May, when I was sitting on a patio in the small downtown of Delaware, Ohio drinking wine while Patrick met up with friends in Columbus. I had my phone out on the table with my Merlin app opened when I saw the little blue circle tracking a bird call and then the image of a chimney swift appeared.

I looked up and saw them, first a couple, and then a dozen. Flying overhead, their unmistakable cigar-shaped bodies, and somewhat bat-like calls. It was just a little earlier than dusk. I rested my head back against the brick wall behind me and smiled. Just when I had stopped looking for them, here they were.

Suddenly I saw something fly out from the wall behind my head. I turned around and saw, just for a moment, a second little bird clinging sideways to the brick. I only saw it for a split second before it flew away. Probably a foot above my head. It looked more like a house sparrow than a swift, but it’s hard to say.

I like to imagine I would have seen a swift up close (a near impossibility given that they only land to nest inside a chimney or hollowed tree) if I had just looked up.

A few months ago, we traveled to Europe for our honeymoon. After three flights from Pittsburgh to Iceland to Paris to Milan, we finally arrived by train and taxi to Brera, the neighborhood where we were staying. After dropping off our suitcases, we went wandering in search of food.

I had a whole list of restaurants I wanted to visit while we were in the city, but they mostly required us to take a taxi. We hadn’t yet explored the metro or trolleys and were too tired to do so late at night, so we walked the few cobblestone blocks around the neighborhood instead. The first two restaurants we approached were packed even at 11 p.m. so we kept looking until we turned a corner to an old church.

We heard them as we saw them. Hundreds, if not thousands, of birds flying in and out of the old brick building. I pulled out my phone to confirm.

Swifts.

Across the street from the church was a restaurant. The first one we ate at during our trip and probably the best meal we had in Milan. Right there, across from the birds I looked for everywhere.

They quickly became a theme of the trip. They were everywhere. At the monastery of The Last Supper, outside our bedroom window in Tuscany. Walking down the street at the end of the day, they were everywhere.

Swifts at Santa Maria delle Grazie (site of DaVinci’s Last Supper)

There’s something to be said for effort. For going out in search of something. But there’s something to be said also for a little letting go and a change of scenery. Giving yourself the language and the knowledge to notice something special when you do see it.

What I’m loving right now:

• Merlin: this app from Cornell Labs is the best for identifying bird calls and tracking birds you see, it has really helped Patrick and I get into birding

• The Invention of Miracles by Katie Booth: this book is remarkable, inspired by the author’s experiences with her grandparents who were deaf and hard of hearing, the book tells the history of Alexander Graham Bell who the deaf community has long known for his complicated history and truly unforgivable rejection of ASL and marriage within the deaf community that has contributed significantly to the oppression deaf communities have faced ever since. Highly recommend.

• Hacks: It just took a few more Emmy’s for me to finally watch this show, I had watched the first episode a couple of times before and just couldn’t get into it. But after I got into a few episodes I was hooked, this is the best.

• Everything Must Go: Hannah Einbinder (who plays Ava in Hacks) also has an incredible, laugh-out-loud special that you can watch like I did when you’re sad that you’ve finished Hacks

• Just for Us: speaking of things where I’m late on the uptake, Alex Edelman’s comedy special is also incredible and was recently awarded, it centers on a meeting of neo-Nazis that Edelman attended in New York as a Jew

• Why we become bored with our lives (and how to find joy again): I listened to this episode of NPR Lifekit right before our honeymoon and it’s at least partly responsible for this piece

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Speaking of birds, I have a collection of poetry out called A Mass of Feathers: Love Poems. You can order a copy at that link for $10.

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