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For the birds Photo by Steve Johnson Six-month-old Justus Wolber was sound asleep when nearly 50 birds flew down his family's chimney on Reddy Street in Medford. His parents, Jon and Nicole, used towels to help the birds to freedom without damaging their wings. Swifts descend on valley By BILL VARBLE Daisy Barber was watching television Monday night when her daughter came in and heard weird rustling noises in the chimney and called the fire department. In the ensuing minutes, the two women determined that: (a) nobody had started a fire, (b) there was in fact no sign of fire in the fireplace, and (c) there was therefore probably no fire in the chimney. "Then all at once we heard 'em fluttering around in there," Barber says. The birds. Ah, but this is not an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The visitors in Barber's home near Shady Cove were the decidedly nonthreatening chaetura vauxi, or vaux's swift, a West Coast cousin of the chimney swift, a slightly larger bird that nests east of the Rocky Mountains. About 25 of the tiny (4 inches long including the tail), dark gray birds wound up in Barber's fireplace, and from there, all over the house, spreading feathery chaos and soot. "One of those things went down in there and they all followed," Barber says. Another gang of feathered intruders struck Jon and Nicole Wolber's Medford home Saturday night. Jon Wolber was on the couch when the couple noticed dark dust trickling ominously down the fireplace. "We thought the chimney was on fire," Nicole Wolber says. "My husband was trying to close the damper as they were flying in his face. It was a little too late." About 50 of the pointy-winged birds were soon flying madly around the house, perching on Nicole's wreaths, hitting the wall, falling stunned to the floor. For a stunned moment, Nicole Wolber thought the birds were swallows -- "like at San Juan Capistrano." The Wolbers quickly put their 3-month-old kitten, Sophie, in the bedroom, lest she think the fireplace was dispensing snacks. Then they did the same thing Barber did: They grabbed bath towels so as not to damage the tiny birds' wings, then went about picking them up and putting them outside, where they flew away. And that, says expert birder Jeanine Felker, of Rogue River, is exactly the right thing to do. While other birds, such as European starlings, sometimes get stuck in chimneys, nine times out of 10 it will be swifts, Felker says. It's hard to mistake the little guys for starlings, she adds. "They look like a cigar with wings." Chaetura is Greek for "bristle-tail," although the birds have a short, square tail and long, thin wings they use for rapid wingbeats followed by gliding. Vaux's swifts go south to winter from central Mexico to Venezuela. The tiny creatures fly north to nest and raise young in Northern California through Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades on into British Columbia. They like to nest in cavities in tall snags in old-growth forests but will settle for a chimney in a pinch. They catch insects to eat in flight and roost communally, sometimes in large numbers. Usually they're looking to lay their eggs in tree cavities and are probably interested in chimneys more as crash pads. "One always seems to get stuck," Felker says. Barber is sure at least one swift is still somewhere in the house. "I called the landlord," she says. "They're out here peeping." "Fortunately, most people at this time of year aren't using their fireplaces," she says. And if the birds hatch eggs in the chimney? Not to worry, Felker says. Young birds leave the nest when they're three weeks old, using sharp, strong claws to walk up walls and make their way in the great world beyond chimneys. "If people can put up with the cheeps and peeps," Felker says, "the birds will get out." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA