Excerpt
CHIMNEY SWIFT Chaetura pelagica Common 551?2" (1214 cm) Like a cigar with wings. A blackish swallowlike bird with long, slightly curved, stiff wings and stubby tail. It appears to beat its wings not in unison but alternately (actually this is an illusion); effect is more batlike, unlike skimming of swallows. They seem to fairly twinkle, gliding between spurts, holding wings bowed in a crescent. Voice: Loud, rapid, ticking or twittering notes. Range: S. Canada to Gulf of Mexico. Winters in Peru. Habitat: Open sky, especially over cities, towns; nests and roosts in chimneys (originally in large hollow trees and cliff crevices).
Text copyright © 2002 by the Marital Trust B u/a Roger Tory Peterson and the Estate of Virginia Peterson. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.