Chimney Swift Sightings and Priority Chimneys
They are arriving! Every day we are receiving sightings of Chimney Swifts in Manitoba. Our first report of swifts in the province was by Luc Blanchette in St Jean Baptiste on the afternoon of May 11th, shortly followed by Gerald Machnee in Selkirk that same evening.
Since then, I have had Chimney Swift reports in the Winnipeg neighbourhoods of River Heights, Tuxedo, St Vital, Wolseley, Island Lakes, North Kildonan and Fort Rouge. Thank you to Barbara and Phil Barnett, Nicole Firlotte, Randy Mooi, Tim Poole, Rudolf Koes and Christie McDonald for the reports. The Assiniboine Park Zoo staff have also seen Chimney Swifts overhead this past weekend.
Outside of Winnipeg, I also saw three swifts in the air while I was out doing last minute clean-out checks in St Adolphe last week and Dave Carleson has also seen Chimney Swifts in Dominion City.
With the swifts arriving MCSI is still looking for people to monitor some of our “priority chimneys” this year. The priority chimneys are chimneys that either 1) have not been watched since 2019 or 2) have not hosted swifts since 2019.
Monitoring of these priority chimneys is key as under the proposed Chimney Swift Recovery Strategy, chimneys that are in use by Chimney Swifts, or that have been in use by Chimney Swifts in the last three years will be protected as residences. Some of our priority chimneys already have volunteer monitors signed up – thank you!
We are still looking for volunteer monitors for the following priority chimneys outside of Winnipeg:
- Pembina Hills Arts Centre, Morden
- Harvest Moon Learning Centre, Clearwater
- St Andrews United Church, Manitou
- MTS Building, Portage la Prairie
- Trinity United Church, Portage la Prairie
- Victoria School (Red River College), Portage la Prairie
- Olina’s Jewels, Portage la Prairie
- Lagasse’s Studio of Fine Art, Souris
- St. Paul’s United Church, Souris
- Hillcrest Museum, Souris
- Kowalchuk’s Funeral Home, Souris
- Chocolate Shop Café, Souris
- Rock Shop, Souris
- Prairie Zen Massage, Stonewall
- VIA Rail Station, The Pas
And in Winnipeg we are looking for volunteers for the following sites:
- Brink’s Canada, City Centre
- Sky Bridge Americas, City Centre
- District Condominiums, City Centre
- Newcastle Apartments, City Centre
- Nutty Club Food Club, City Centre
- Victoria Court, City Centre
- Villa Fel Rodriguez, City Centre
- Western Paperbox Company Ltd. Warehouse, City Centre
- Bardal Funeral Home, City Centre
- Nejmark Architects, City Centre
- Gregg Building, City Centre
- Living Gospel Church, City Centre
- Immigrant Centre Building, City Centre
- House of Hesed, City Centre
- The Old Market Autonomous Zone, City Centre
- St John’s Cathedral, North End
- Ukrainian National Federation, North End
- Valhalla Gardens, North Kildonan
- Vita Foam, South Point Douglas
- Restmore Bedding Co Ltd, South Point Douglas
- New Silver Heights Apartments, St James
- King’s Theatre, St James
- Viscount Apartments, St James
- Essex House Apartments, St James
- Elan Designs and Upholstery, West End
- John Howard Society, West End
- Kildonan United Church, West Kildonan
- The Lothian Block Apartments, Wolseley
If you are someone who likes to move between sites (rather than watch at one site each week) then monitoring a different priority chimney each week might be the role for you! If you’d like to chose one priority chimney and monitor it each week, we can also set that up for you as well.
We start our official monitoring period next week (Wednesday, May 25th), so I am looking forward to see what everyone observes! If you would like to start watching swifts earlier than that feel free to send your observations to mbchimneyswift@gmail.com.
- Amanda
