A New Season Begins (soon)!

Chimney swifts have been sighted in the southeast corner of South Dakota and eastern Minnesota. So, if we can nudge, kick, or coerce the cold weather out of our area, perhaps our Manitoba chimney swifts will arrive in the next few weeks. MCSI is focusing on two activities this year. You can check out our past  monitoring results at (http://www.mbchimneyswift.ca/Documents/2013_sites.pdf).

The first activity is to support the national chimney swift monitoring program where monitors across Canada will be chimney-side on the evenings of May 21, 25, 29, and June 2. The distribution and abundance of chimney swifts in Canada can be tracked through simultaneous monitoring across the country; our Manitoba data will be collated and forwarded to the national coordinator. Please contact mbchimneyswift@gmail.com if you are interested and available in joining this activity, plus indicate what geographic area is most convenient for you as a monitoring destination. The 2014 guidelines/monitoring protocols are similar to last year’s which can be found at: http://www.mbchimneyswift.ca/resources.html  ​We would appreciate everyone monitoring at least 1/2 hour before sunset to 1/2 hour after sunset on the specified evenings. No heroics are required if the weather is poor.​

The second MCSI activity is the creation of an inventory of roost and nest sites which need repairing/restoring, or candidate chimneys which could be re-opened (there must be historical data to show that the site once housed chimney swifts). We have received a three year Environmental Damages Fund (EDF) award to protect chimney swift habitat and we will begin to select sites for remedial work in the early fall.

The Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative members would like to wish Frank Machovec well in his retirement from MCSI Coordinator and Steering Committee duties! Frank has served the chimney swifts, and all of us, well over many years of dedicated service. Thank you Frank! We are pleased that Frank has retained his role as webmaster so you can follow all of the Manitoba chimney swift news here, over the 2014 season.