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I have been watching and listening to these chimney swifts (CHSW) for the past couple years over downtown Columbia every time I went to a concert at The Blue Note, never knowing which chimneys they went to each night. But alas, on the night of 16 October 2016, I located the vortex of birds in the sky and finally found one of the chimneys. As I stood there, awestruck by what I was seeing, I attempted to count how many CHSW there actually were. It was impossible. Easily several hundred, but probably over 1,000 birds using that chimney. The chimney was large enough for them to enter several at a time, making it difficult to decifer which ones were going in, which ones were still dancing around the entrance, and whether or not any came back out of the chimney.

If you have any CHSW in your area, I highly recommend you take the time one evening (or morning) to sit nearby and watch (and listen to their chatter) as fly in for the evening, congregate in the sky like in the video, and flutter into the chimney. You won't regret it.