Here’s a Swift update while our intrepid coordinator Tim is, as they say, across the pond.
From Saint Adolphe, our swift nesting capital with five active swift sites and an artificial tower, comes news of a mural featuring our favourite insectivore:
Lesley Gaudry, the CEDO of the RM of Ritchot provides some details:
The artist is Mandy van Leeuwen. The Sign is a project of the Ritchot Community Development Corporation – St. Adolphe Subcommittee. The mural is part of our Main Street Enhancement efforts together with the Pergola at Esso and the hanging flower baskets. The Heritage themed mural is to commemorate different aspects of St. Adolphe’s heritage – built and natural environment.
The birds on the mural are representation of the RM being a birding area, the chimney swifts are of course for the nesting capital, the area view of the town on top is homage to the red river lot settlement land patterns, and the old rm logo, etc.
It should be noted that Barb Stewart and Tim Poole had some input on the design of the mural.
As far as monitoring results from south of the Perimeter, Barb Stewart reports “As of this morning, all 5 nest sites in town are active at the incubation stage; extra birds are in town with at least one helper on site at the SE Club Amical chimney.”
A group of road warriors (David, Lynnea, Frank and Jacquie) drove out to Manitou last night (after an obligatory stop at the Morden Tim Hortons) to check out several promising chimneys in the town. The chimneys were indeed promising,the weather was obliging and the company was congenial, but no swifts were seen entering the chimneys, although Lynnea and Frank heard some familiar chittering during the monitoring period.
July 4 (Swift Night but not necessarily American Independence Day)
Instead of an organized blitz of a pre-determined site on July 4, we recommend that you select a likely chimney for monitoring. We hope that some new sites might be found or some lesser-viewed sites might get some data points for 2018.
You might want to consult the Monitoring Results page for a list of known sites.
— Frank Machovec for the MCSI
