Join us for "the Best Air Show in Town" at the New Hartford Elementary School, Thursday May 28th at 7:15 p.m. (rain date is May 29th). You will get to see an amazing sight:  a colony of chimney swifts roosting en masse at sunset. Bring a lawn chair or a blanket and join neighbors to watch the aerials!

Chimney swifts are little dusky birds, resembling flying cigars, that rarely fly below roof or tree canopy height. They often go unnoticed, because they spend so much time high in the air, but what we should notice is that they eat one-third of their mass in insects every day! Come learn from our state researchers about these amazing small birds that fly at least 3,000 miles every year to raise their young here in our Connecticut homes.

New Hartford Elementary School has been identified as an important summer roosting site for chimney swifts in Connecticut, and has been the focus of state research for the past five years. Roosting chimney swift colonies are among the most entertaining bird sighting events you could experience in Connecticut. About 20 minutes before sunset (sunset is about 8:10 p.m. on May 28th), chimney swifts from around the area will begin to congregate in swirling, "chittering" groups above the roost chimney. Groups of birds can be in the tens or hundreds. Swifts will continue to circle, dive, chase each other, disappear into thin air, return as quickly as they disappeared, fly in formation, so on and so forth, until about ten minutes after sunset when they will pile and literally flip over as they drop into the chimney.

Join us at 7:15 p.m. or after to socialize and learn about the birds from Shannon Kearney-McGee, a bird researcher at the CT DEEP Wildlife Division. Be sure you arrive by 7:45 p.m. to see the main event!