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On a recent evening, a group of people gathered in the basement of the Parkdale public library to feud over another condominium planned for their downtown Toronto neighbourhood. Like many condo fights, this one was bitter. Arguments flew back and forth, tempers rose, voices were raised.

Amid all the hubbub, a soft-spoken 67-year-old woman raised her hand. What about the chimney swifts, she asked. Could something be done for the chimney swifts? A murmur of amusement passed through the room. Chimney swifts? Who was this person and why was she talking about birds in the middle of an important community meeting?

The person is Moira Clark, the Lorax of the swifts. She was talking about birds because a pair of swifts roost in the chimney of the old industrial building that will be torn down to make way for the condo. The swifts will lose their nesting place.

"Speaking on behalf of the swifts who have made 6 Noble Street their home, I would like to express their presumed opposition to this plan," said her prepared statement to last month's community meeting.

Swifts, Ms. Clark explained, are a threatened species. The little, swallow-like bird spends the winter in the Amazon basin of South America. Like many birds, swifts come north to breed during the spring. As the name suggests, they live mainly in chimneys, raising their young in nests made of twigs stuck to the inside walls with their glue-like saliva.

Their population has declined by more than 70 per cent over the past half century. The reasons are not fully understood. One may be a decline in flying insects, which they gobble up in flight. Another may be a lack of habitable chimneys.

Modern chimneys are often lined with metal, making it impossible for swifts to nest. Many homeowners now cap their old, disused chimneys. Bigger chimneys are disappearing, too, as old factories or warehouses are torn down or adapted for modern use. All of this makes Ms. Clark worry.

She is not an ornithologist or even a serious bird watcher. She is a painter who lives in a small Victorian house off Queen Street West. She became interested in swifts because she sees them flying around when she sits in her backyard.

Swifts are among the most aerial of birds. They spend most of their time on the wing, diving and whirling in their pursuit of bugs. They are so at home in the air that they don't even pause to perch on wires or branches. In the rare times when they come to rest, they cling to chimney walls and other vertical surfaces. With a short tail and grey, tube-like body, they are sometimes called cigars with wings. To Ms. Clark, they look like little fighter planes as they swoop around behind her place.

"They are really fast," she says. "They turn on nothing. It's quite incredible. How they even see the insects they catch, I'm not sure."

Her campaign to save the swift is recent. Last year, a friend, Mark Bell, told her about a program to monitor swift-nesting sites. She found herself roaming her neighbourhood staring at chimneys to see if any swifts flew in – looking, she fears, like "some kind of nut." Once, she was straddling her bicycle as she watched and the bike toppled over, leaving her "lying there like an idiot."

But her vigilance paid off. She and Mr. Bell found swifts at several local chimneys, some of them not on existing lists of swift sites. One of the chimneys is at 6 Noble, a squat, single-storey building near Queen and Dufferin streets that currently houses a dance school. Mr. Bell saw two swifts fly into it at dusk on July 24 and Aug. 26 last year.

A developer plans to build a mid-size condo on the site. Ms. Clark doesn't seriously expect to block the project, but she hopes that the developer will at least obey a provincial law requiring builders to report their plans to demolish a chimney. Ideally, she says, the developer would build a new home for the swifts. Builders can install specially built swift towers that mimic open chimneys and attract the birds.

It doesn't seem much to ask. Some buildings are putting bee hives on their roofs to help bees to thrive. Others install green roofs full of living plants. Why not swift towers? Ms. Clark says we should start thinking of the city as "a place where we can encourage creatures to live with us, as opposed to just driving them away and saying: 'Who cares about them, they'll figure it out.'"

Swifts have lived alongside people for generations. Before European settlement, they nested in caves or hollow trees. Cities provided them with millions of perfect nesting places, high, dry and out of sight. In return for housing, they provide a benefit: they consume millions of mosquitoes.

Their acrobatics enliven the skies. Their thin chattering call is part of the soundtrack of summer in the city. Ms. Clark is right: Cities should do everything possible to help them thrive again.

Preet Banerjee examines the forces that can drive up your condo fees.

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