Date: 05/28/2001

Number: 1

Before May ends, I think it's worthwhile to note one of most satisying signs of continuity in nature--the arrival of the chimney swifts early each May in the tall brick chimney on our Victorian house in Altoona, Iowa. The date of arrival seems to be somewhere between May 2-5 each year (judging now from 29 years of observation). The swifts are back again, filling the sky with their marvelous swoops and dashes--and providing a lively chatter inside the house where the high chimney is accessible. In the early 1900s, Iowan Althea Sherman had a chimney tower built in 1915 in northeast Iowa so she could observe chimney swifts, and by 1918, the swifts built their first nest. Her observations continued until 1936. and her studies of the chimney swifts and other birds are captured in the paperback book, "Birds of an Iowa Dooryard," published in a 1996 edition by the University of Iowa Press. The arrivals of the monarch butterflies and the chimney swifts--among the many signs of nature--create a

Des Moines, IA

Latitude: 41.6 Longitude: -93.6

Observed by: Robert
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