Birds invade Redlands home

In 1970 My wife at the time, and I had the same thing happen to us..The facts carried the story and UPI picked up the story. We lived on the corner of San Mateo and Olive Ave. We had been out for a drive and when we got home we soon discovered that about 400 "Swifts" had flown down the Chimney and into the house. We called the police and they tried to help us remove the birds. One of the officers closed the chimney flu and then sprayed mace to try to get the birds to go back up the chimney. Needless to say all that accomlpished was to make all of our eyes water so badly that we had to all go outside until the mace disapated enough to allow us to return. We had help from the neighbors and the police throwing arm loads of the swifts out the front door. As I stated earlier the story went on the international news wire and we had Regis Philbin and other celibratiec calling to interview us, we even had some folks from the department of agraculture come to the house and take some of the dead birds back to Washington to be examined.. My olnl advise to these poor folks is: wash what you can and then get some sealer like"kills", and paint over the rest. Good luck and HAPPY PAINTING!!
Larry Keister
Install@ix.netcom.com
Henderson, NV

Chimney Swifts rely on chimneys as a place to nest and raise young. To suggest placing a grate over the chimney is one way to cause further declines in the places used by these birds, and which is causing a decline in the species.

One incident does not mean chimney require a grate covering. Why not consider another option? The reporter should have delved further into this topic and presented a more balanced view presenting the value of the species as bug eaters.

These birds were not Chimney Swifts, which are very rare in California. They were migrating Vaux's Swifts, which closely resemble Chimney Swifts. Everyone putting a grate over their chimneys might slightly inconvenience these birds in migration, but I seriously doubt that in this area such actions would have any effects on this species. Vaux's Swifts nest well north of here.

Wacky!