Saving Species Program 2021 – The Importance of Protecting the Chimney Swift
I think we can all agree that Chimney Swifts are an intriguing and charismatic little bird. Anastasia and her group for the Saving Species Program certainly thought so too! Read on for a special guest blog post written by a group of conservation-minded students at Mennonite Brethren Colligate Institute.
— Amanda Shave
The “Saving Species Project 2021” is an innovative and challenging project that starts in the beginning of March and ends in the middle of April in a grade 12 biology 40S class. This project aims to let students pick one particularly endangered species as their research target and take actions to protect this species. As participants in this project, we are very glad to focus our research on the Chimney Swift and to dedicate our time and effort to develop plans for their protection. In this blog post, I would like to share some information that we have learned about the Chimney Swift and some possible actions that we can take.
How We Became Interested in Chimney Swifts
Manitoba is a province that is known for having a wide variety of birds that either live here year-round or pass through the province on their migration routes, so at the beginning of the project, our group tried to focus on a local endangered bird species. We searched for relevant information on the Assiniboine Park Zoo website and found out the Chimney Swift is an endangered bird species that the zoo is now trying to protect. We are international students that have been raised in places that do not have any Chimney Swifts visit our home country, and because we all lived in high-rise apartment blocks back home, we have never seen or realized that there are species that have chosen to nest in chimneys. Once we got interested in this species, we started to do more research and the most remarkable fact about the Chimney Swift is that they spend most of their lives flying! They can sleep, eat, defecate and even mate in the air. They adapted to live around humans, nesting in chimneys, however this adaptation has become a problem for them in modern society because the traditional brick chimneys are now being replaced. Another interesting fact we found is that the Chimney Swift has a very close biological relationship with the hummingbird. They are both in the order Apodiformes and share a similar neck muscle arrangement as well as a particular enzyme. They are all superb aerialists and hare unique feet structures. As we dove into more research about the Chimney Swift, the MCSI’s blog became a perfect resource for us. We first found out about this blog from our biology teacher and then we also attended a presentation on birds that was held by The Assiniboine Park Zoo and the speaker mentioned MCSI as well. Since then, we have been learning a lot from the articles in this blog.
Why do the Chimney Swifts need to be protected?
A video of thousands of Chimney Swifts flying back to their nests (chimneys) amazed us and it would be so regrettable if people could never observe this magnificent scene in reality. They are not only valuable to birdwatchers but also play important roles in the ecosystem. Chimney Swifts prey on pests like red imported fire ants and the clover root curculio and just as other birds, they are also helping to spread pollen. So if we lose them, it will be a definite loss in the mutual relationships in the ecosystem.
What can we do?
The Chimney Swift cannot be kept in captivity and be protected indoors, therefore many actions are being taken in the wild in order to conserve this species. For example, many institutions and volunteers are building artificial Chimney Swift nests for them, observing their migration and recording their numbers and the places where they show up every year. Following the information provided in MCSI’s blog, we visited some Chimney Swift towers that exist in the city and did a presentation at school. For individuals, opening their chimneys or building a tower for the species in the wild may be impractical or too hard, however, this is not the only way to help them. Some considerable methods can be seen below:
- We must protect the insect populations that the Chimney Swifts eat, including various species of flies, ants, wasps, and bees by not using harmful insecticides or pesticides on lawns and gardens. Increasing the plant diversity in your yard will also help to increase the variety of insects and food sources for birds.
- Focus on protecting the environment and working on reducing the negative influences that create climate change which affects the species.
- Participating in relevant volunteer activities such as observing and recording their migration.
- Working on increasing awareness for the surrounding people such as sharing information in the community using articles, pamphlets, posters, signing up for presentations for yourself or your children, paying more attention to birds in nature and taking pictures and sharing them around.
Every little step that we take will contribute to helping this species and hopefully we can see them flying in the sky around us more often in the future.
by Anastasia Li
This is an excellent article! It is rewarding to hear of the interest in Chimney Swifts by the next generation of environmentally-minded people. Keep up the good work!