Swift Night Out
This Saturday the Central Kentucky Audubon Society hosted a Swift Night Out in downtown Lexington. Following a nice dinner at a local restaurant opposite the Fayette County Courthouse, we walked a few blocks to a parking lot to observe Chimney Swifts funneling into an unused chimney. We arrived at 7:30pm and could hear a few Chimney Swifts chattering high in the sky. Around 7:50pm, they started forming a flock and by 8pm the flock was circling the chimney. At 8:05pm they started entering the chimney head-first. By 8:11pm it was all done.
We saw 120 Chimney Swifts, which is a fairly light number. I didn’t bring my camera; I just wanted to enjoy the evening without faffing with a camera. But watching the birds funneling into the chimney was so cool that I did end up taking a few cell phone pics.
Chimney Swifts. The dark smudges in the sky are the birds circling the unused chimney on this building in downtown Lexington. iPhone 14.
A member of our group mentioned there was another building about a mile away with even more Chimney Swifts. With that information, Tony from CKAS scheduled an impromptu Chimney Swift get together for the following night.
This time I brought my camera. When I arrived, we spotted an American Kestrel perched on a wire high above the parking lot. I pulled out the 800mm lens and snapped a few photos.
American Kestrel. Perched high on a wire, notably close to where the Chimney Swifts were congregating. Hmmm. Nikon Z8 with tripod-mounted Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens at f/6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO 1250.
There were many more Chimney Swifts at this second location. By the end of the night we counted (which is really hard to do) approximately 550 swifts. There was a bush growing on top of the chimney but this didn’t seem to impede their ability to get into the chimney.
Photographing the swifts was very difficult due to the low light conditions. The birds were flying into the chimney 15-20 minutes after sunset, so it was really dark. Plus, I wanted to keep a high shutter speed to keep the birds sharp. The dark birds were completely silhouetted against the sky, so I went ahead and processed the images as B&W.
I used DXO PureRaw to denoise the image which was shot at ISO 25,600. It did a good job cleaning up the sky but the bricks are a bit muddied. I want to return to take additional pictures and this time I will probably do a bit of image stacking. I would also like to try slowing down the shutter speed to get some intentional motion blur. Time to get creative!
Chimney Swifts. Nikon Z8 with tripod-mounted Nikkor Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR lens at 180mm, f/6.3, 1/3200 sec, ISO 25600. Processed with DXO PureRaw to denoise and sharpen.
Of note, last week the Board of Directors for the Tampa Audubon Society recently had a discussion about the feasibility of putting up chimney swift boxes in the Tampa area. Chimney Swifts are migrating birds, breeding in North America in the summer, then at summer’s end migrate to South America. According to birdsoftheworld.com, “Over the past several decades Chimney Swift populations have been in decline throughout much of their range, likely due to changes in prey abundance, and unknown threats during migration and on the wintering grounds, yet the magnitude and geographic extent of these factors are not well understood.”
It was great to photograph these birds and to learn more about them. More to come!
Happy birding!
