While most of the Chimney Swifts seem to have left Manitoba in the past several weeks, we do have a few groups that have stuck it out until recently despite the windy and cool weather. Our recent focus has been on the swifts hanging out in Dauphin and Selkirk…
Pat and Marilyn watched the nesting chimney at the Watson Arts Centre building in Dauphin on September 2nd. Unfortunately, it had been raining an hour before monitoring started, and while they heard bird twitter about 20 minutes after arrival, they saw no activity at the chimney. Pat thought that either the Chimney Swifts were already in the chimney before monitoring started because of rain, or they had moved on from using the nesting chimney, possibly starting migration.
On September 7th Ken and Jan visited the Dauphin Roost site for the roosting hour. This time they saw no swifts for an official “zero count” at this chimney. As Ken said “I’m thankful that I didn’t see anything and hopeful that they are truly on their way south as they are warning us of possible frost tonight with temperatures of -3oC. Maybe see them next spring.” While zero counts are not so interesting to watch, they give us an accurate picture of Chimney Swift timing, which is important to establish in Manitoba. We are at the northern edge of the Chimney Swift breeding range in Manitoba, so reports of swift timing in more southerly parts of the range may not apply here.
Nia and Linda watched the Selkirk Mental Health Centre’s yellow brick chimney on September 3rd. They saw a total of three swifts that went done the chimney about a minute a part from each other near the end of the roost monitoring period. A couple of days later on September 5th, Winona watched the same chimney. She observed one entry around 7:30pm, and another entry a couple of minutes before sunset (7:59pm).
On the same night as Winona, Gerald was out watching the swift family still at the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound (site 2018-16.1) for 35 minutes around sunset. There were four entries spread across the observation time, with entries starting around 7:50pm, and ending shortly before 8:30pm. The second chimney at the site (2018-16.2) had no entries or exits.
Each night from September 7th– 11th Gerald and Winona continued to watched the site 2018-16.1 at the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound. On September 7th Gerald watched the chimney for 20 minutes. He saw three entries into the chimney, but was not able to stay until sunset. On September 8th Gerald was back again for the full roost monitoring period. A total of eight swifts were observed using the chimney for roosting. Entries started around 7:40pm and continued until just after sunset. On September 9th there were still 6 swifts using the chimney for the night. On the same night the other chimney at the site (2018-16.2) had one swift that decided to roost for the night – somewhat unusual. On September 10th he once again was at the St Andrews Maintenance compound. Site 2018-16.2 had one swift do a quick entry and exit to check the chimney out, but at the end of the night only site 2018-16.1 had swifts – with a total of five roosting.
On September 11th, Winona finally saw evidence of the swift starting to leave on migration with one entry seen. Then finally on September 12th, well past swifts using any other site (that we know of in Manitoba) did Gerald get a zero count for swifts in the evening. Our last known swifts have left their Manitoba roosts for the year.
However, that was not our last Chimney Swift related activity! On September 14th, I joined Assiniboine Park Zoo staff to check out the artificial Chimney Swift Tower at the zoo. From photos taken by the Zoo staff, we knew a nest was built, and from monitoring by Zoo staff, we believe that this site had successful fledging. Looking at the contents of the nest, we found only eggshell fragments. It looks like this nest had a successful year with all eggs hatching, and all young fledging! From the eggshell fragments found we believe that there were three fledglings from the Assiniboine Park Zoo tower. Chimney Swifts on their way to South America, the work of the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative now turns to cleaning and repairing nesting and roosting chimneys!
With that, all of us at the MCSI would like to give a HUGE thank you to all of the volunteers who have stuck with us for our 14th year of Chimney Swift monitoring! Our monitoring (like so many things at the time) got off to a rocky start with COVID-19, but I am glad we were able to stick with it and come out with positive results for our Chimneys Swifts. I would also like to give a shout out to Frank, our fearless webmaster for posting these updates all spring, summer and now into fall!
If you have any remaining Chimney Swift monitoring forms please send them to mbchimneyswift@gmail.com. Even if they are May monitoring stragglers, they form an important part of our Manitoba Chimney Swift picture in 2020.
–Amanda Shave
