Swift Night Out

Travis Audubon is hosting Swift Night Out on Friday evening, September 11, at the JJ Pickle Research Campus at 10100 Burnet Road in North Austin. It's a bird-watching party built around the chimney swift, and the timing is the whole point: the gathering is set for the evening, when these birds return to their roosts as the light fades.

If you aren't familiar with them, chimney swifts are a bit of an oddity. They spend most of their lives airborne, hunting insects by day and roosting in chimneys at night. Their claws are built for clinging to vertical surfaces rather than perching on a branch, which is why they take to chimneys in the first place. The party is timed to watch them come back to those roosts just as evening falls.

It's a simple enough premise, but it's one of those things that's easier to see in person than to read about. You'll be out with Travis Audubon, the local birding group, watching a whole colony of birds settle in for the night. If you've never spent an evening watching birds return to their roosts, this is a good way to do it.

Just a heads-up: the event is listed for Friday evening, September 11, at the JJ Pickle Research Campus, 10100 Burnet Road, in North Austin. It's a bird-watching party with Travis Audubon, and the main feature is the chimney swift.