Monitoring in 2018: Part Two

In 2017, MCSI volunteers managed to watch 55 sites during the NRMP evenings. This however does not show the full story. In total, over 150 chimneys were monitored throughout the season. Some of these chimneys were watched during the day, some on an evening, and some of them were really just casual drop-ins. What we really have seen though is a remarkable volunteer effort to look out for swifts.

So how would we go about watching an additional 100 chimneys? Here are some suggestions.

There are some towns with dedicated volunteers, but there are others with no volunteers. For example, Matt has been watching Carman swifts for a number of years, and has been assisted in recent years by Rhonda. Carman is well watched. But what about Manitou? What about Morden? These are relatively new towns for swifts, and maybe we need to adopt a new approach to monitoring the potential chimneys. One option is for a group from elsewhere in the province to descend on these towns for an evening of swift-watching, driven by an MCSI Coordinator. So in 2018 we will try for some swift blitz nights in Manitou, Souris, and possibly smaller ones in Morden and La Salle. Of course, if anyone knows of someone who could do monitoring in any of these places, then please let us know!

There are areas of Winnipeg which need more coverage. St Boniface, St Vital and Osborne Village come to mind for starters. A similar approach in these areas might also work.

Of course, if you are interested in any of the above places for monitoring, then please let us know via the usual channels.

Winnipeg volunteer, John Hays, has made a habit in the past couple of years of sleuthing out new sites. Much of his dedicated method involves watching chimneys for breeding swifts during the day. These sites are often new sites which he has found on his travels around the downtown area. He spends around 20 minutes at each site watching for an entry, this being the time lapse expected between feeding visits by adult birds. He then moves on. By doing this, John has managed to find multiple new sites in South Point Douglas and the City Centre. Monitoring in this way would be ideal in an area like Osborne Village in Winnipeg, which has a high concentration of chimneys in a small area.

Manitoba has 3 larger Chimney Swift roosts, and it is always worth a trip to see the more spectacular entries of several dozen swifts. Why not get involved in counting these roosts on non-NRMP evenings? MCSI researchers have been analysing the data generated from these three roosts to try to increase our working knowledge of the actions of Manitoba’s swifts.

Most volunteers have their favoured chimney for monitoring, and we really appreciate them being watched during the core NRMP evenings. After this monitoring is finished, why not check out another chimney in your local area? Gord and the Portage swifters have managed to build up a detailed picture in the Portage la Prairie by checking different sites throughout the season. If you would like additional chimneys to watch later in the season, we would be delighted to find a site for you.

For some, watching throughout the season has its reward when you see the signs of fledged swifts making their way in and out of the chimney. In 2017, Margaret and Millie recorded the latest known fledging date ever recorded in Manitoba, when their swifts were practicing entries and exits in late August. If you wish to know more about how to identify recently fledged swifts, then please let us know.

This is just a flavour of what you can do – or even better, find other people to do! If you would like to find out more about any of the above suggestions, then please let us know.

In our next blog, we will brief volunteers about a couple of exciting new projects in Winnipeg, and outline how we would need help with these in 2018.

– Tim, Frank, etc….