Charlotte's growth threatens an unlikely bird habitat

You’re reading Charlotte in Motion, a biweekly newsletter that examines how the Charlotte region is dealing with bumper-to-bumper traffic, rising housing costs, crowded schools and other challenges that come with the ultimate Charlotte story of growth. Charlotte in Motion is produced in partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and WFAE.

by Zachary Turner and James Farrell
WFAE

The chimney swift is a gray bird with a penchant for brick masonry. Sounds straightforward, but there’s a lot we don’t know about them: How they pick their roosts. How exactly they communicate with one another. Why more than half of chimney swifts have disappeared since the middle of last century.

But we do know one thing: Every year, thousands of the birds stop in Mecklenburg County on their way south. And many of them like to spend their nights near old Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools buildings — creating an unexpected conservation battleground.

Seven-year-old birdwatcher Matilda sees a swarm of chittering gray birds prepare to funnel into an old chimney at the former Smith Middle School one recent fall evening.

“I see chimney swifts,” she says, as the birds spin around the chimney.

She’s standing on the lawn of Collinswood Language Academy just off Tyvola Road — the school adjacent to the abandoned Smith building.

The swifts are making their annual trip to the Amazon Basin. Charlotte is kind of a layover for these birds, and they’re spending the night in this chimney. Ninth-grader Celia Kaul originally found the roost.

“I was actually here looking at the trees on campus,” Kaul said. “We're working with Tree Charlotte right now and the city to preserve some live oaks on campus.”

As the sun sets, the birds drop out of formation, falling into the opening where they’ll cling to the exposed bricks within.

“The main concern is that the building is being torn down,” Kaul said. “So we're hoping that the chimney is able to be preserved because it's on the side of the campus and it's not attached to the building through brick. It's attached to this metal shaft.”

The building has been vacant since 2021. And since then, the families who send their kids to Collinswood Language Academy say it’s become an eyesore and a safety hazard, particularly in the last year.

Collinswood PTA member Harry Carawan says people regularly trespass. They’ve found hypodermic needles, human feces and vandalism.

“We've had break-ins at Collinswood that we think are associated with that,” Carawan said. “And then back in January of last year, there was even a gun incident that we think that people were perhaps living in the Smith building.”

Gerardo Sandoval’s kids go to Collinswood. Standing outside the building, he says it’s a real concern.

“The most pressing issue is the safety, right?” Sandoval said. “You don't know exactly who's here, how close they are to the school. We're on the opposite side, but if we go to the kind of the caddy corner of the property, you're 15, 20 feet from touching the gym with windows that fortunately are now boarded up, but it's extremely close, too close.”

CMS and Mecklenburg County plan to demolish the building and turn it into affordable housing.

Parents say they support the idea of keeping the chimney — Sandoval says he recently took his kids to go watch the swifts. He sees an opportunity here: residents want the space to be a benefit to the community.

Sandoval says that a family at the school recently set up a garden, and the school community is exploring building an apiary. The chimney could be part of that vision.

“Look at what we're doing in the conservation space, right?” Sandoval said. “From teaching about the importance of habitat through the garden, farming and so forth. The role that bees play in the apiary and the experience that kids can get from that to hey, there are birds that migrate through here.”

Still, after several years, parents worry about the status of the building and whether the old chimney could hold demolition up.

“I hope it's not used as a scapegoat for why they can't demolish the other parts of the building,” Sandoval said. “I believe the only item attaching the chimney to the main buildings that we want torn down or should be torn down is a brick wall.”

In April, the CMS board declared the Smith Center land surplus and agreed to sell it to the county. A draft term sheet outlined a purchase price up to $4.5 million, and another $2.5 million for CMS to demolish the building.

Mecklenburg County approved funding for the project in August, but CMS says the district and the county are still working to finalize a purchase agreement. Mecklenburg County had requested that CMS try to preserve the chimneys as part of the demolition. CMS says it plans to leave the structure intact.

Once the purchase agreement is done, CMS says it will have to complete asbestos and environmental testing and submit permits. The permitting process can take up to six months. Before demolition can begin, CMS must conduct asbestos abatement.

Demolition before the end of this school year might be a stretch. CMS Board member Cynthia Stone shared residents’ frustrations that demolition isn’t moving fast enough.

But after witnessing the chimney swifts, she also sees an opportunity in the chimneys:

“We have so many interesting historical things in Charlotte that we tear down constantly,” Stone said. “So here's a piece that is historical in nature, but it's also an environmental safety net for these birds.”

That part about constantly tearing down “interesting historical things” is a problem because chimney swifts aren’t just at risk of losing the Smith Center. Sara Gagné is an urban landscape ecologist. She studies a variety of different ecological topics — like birds, salamanders and otters. That now includes the swifts. She’s mapping their roosts across Mecklenburg County.

“I love chimney swifts because, like the symbiotic relationship between people and chimney swifts, such a delicate little creature, is so apparent, and I just think it's really meaningful for us to essentially share habitat,” Gagné said. “All of this, as you know, was started with trying to find schools and CMS properties, both active and surplus, that had chimneys and had swifts in them.”

When Kaul — the ninth-grade conservationist — found the Smith Center chimney, she contacted Gagné about the demolition. Since then, the urban landscape ecologist’s been compiling a map of known roosts.

“I had no idea if there was a chimney. I just started with the list of CMS surplus properties on the website. So I drove around here, and it's a beautiful time to be outside. It's dusk. The sun is setting,” Gagné said. “I try to get there early, and then you see a few swifts, and you're like, ‘Are those coming to my chimney?’ And then more and more swifts come, and they gather and congregate.”

So far, Gagné has found about 20 active roosts, meaning she saw birds there this year. Of those, seven were on CMS property, and many were surplus, putting them in danger of demolition.

The truth is: No one knows what would happen if these chimneys disappeared. Scientists don’t know exactly why the swift population has dropped so rapidly. But habitat loss and a declining insect population are among the prime suspects. The swifts roosted mostly in hollow, old-growth trees, before people cut those down. Chimneys might almost be their post-forest refuge.

“It's important to conserve these because their destruction could be a significant factor in swift decline, and they already exist,” Gagné said. “It's not kind of a delicate, sensitive plant ecosystem that we're not sure if we're going to be able to save it. No, this is part of the built environment that we have 100% control over saving or not.”

There’s still a lot left to learn about our small, chittering neighbors. But watching them whirl and funnel in perfect synchrony at dusk can turn an abandoned old chimney into a little island of natural magic.

And Gagné says that’s worth saving.

Zachary Turner is WFAE’s climate reporter, and James Farrell is WFAE’s education reporter.