mbchimneyswift@gmail.com – Page 10 – Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative

The first week in review

The First Week of Chimney Swift Monitoring

Our first official night of Chimney Swift monitoring started off chilly! May 26^th was the first night of monitoring under both the MCSI and NRMP monitoring protocols and it was great that everyone was monitoring together. We had people out in Dauphin, Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, St Jean Baptiste, La Broquerie, St Francois Xavier and Selkirk.

Unfortunately, with the cool weather last week, and particularly on Wednesday, we had quite a few zero counts. Some sites likely did not have swifts, but at other sites it is possible that the swifts went down the chimneys before our counts started due to the cool weather itself, as well as the low temperatures and wind keeping the swifts’ insect prey grounded.

Justin Schell monitored at the Goodnews Fellowship Church for us this year on May 26^th and did not see any swifts. This previously used site has not hosted swifts for a number of years, but we know that swifts do sometimes move around, so we are still hoping they may recognize this chimney is a great site (and hosted by a great congregation of chimney swift “landlords”)!

Francene, Jack, Carl and Debby watched the artificial chimney tower at Old Grace on May 26^th and unfortunately did not see any swifts either.

A new Chimney Swift volunteer to our program this year, Anastasia, set up outside the apartments on 25 Valhalla on May 26^th for us. Breanne is also a new volunteer this year and was set up at the Maryland FoodFare to watch the newly renovated (by MCSI) chimney. Unfortunately, on both of their first nights out, they did not see any swifts. However, we thank them (and all of you) for persevering despite the cool and windy weather!

Luc monitored the St. Jean Baptiste Church on Wednesday. Once again, no entries were seen but he did have one swift do a vocal flyover just after 8:30pm.

Blaire watched the St Norbert Behavioural Health Foundation chimney on May 26^th. She did not have any swifts during her monitoring period, however, she reported that on May 14^th there were four swifts that entered the chimney around 8:45pm for the night.

I watched the Grant- Wilton Apartments in River Heights on Wednesday. Like many others, I saw no swifts, a couple of crows and gulls were my entertainment for the evening instead.

Phil and Barbara covered two of our chimneys on River Avenue on May 26^th. Barbara was at the Rosemount Apartments. She had a brief view of what may have been a Chimney Swift flyover at 8:30 pm, but no swifts entered the apartment. Phil was at the Biltmore Apartments with no swifts to be seen.

Mike and Michèle Tumber took up their usual spot at the Roman Catholic Church in St Francois Xavier on May 26^th. They had two swift entries, but noted that the swifts entered the chimney almost a full hour earlier than they normally see in their monitoring periods with entries at 8:27 pm and 8:28 pm.

Blair watched the chimney oat 690 St Joseph on May 26^th. He had one flyby near 9:00 pm, but no entries. This building has hosted swifts for the last two years.

Gordon was out watching the Rufus Prince Building in Portage La Prairie on May 26^th. He had three swifts entering the chimney. Two swifts entered at 8:55 pm, and one more a couple of minutes later at 8:59 pm.

Gary and Marj watched the chimney at St John’s Ravenscourt School on May 27^th. They had two entries, but quite far apart, which is somewhat unusual. One Chimney Swift entered at 8:48pm and the second did not enter until 9:46pm.

Jo was also out on May 27^th watching for us. She was stationed at the Assiniboine Park Zoo tower and was tasked with keeping an eye out for resident woodpeckers in addition to the Chimney Swifts! Woodpeckers have been creating holes in the wooden tower structure (probably liking the nice noise the hollow “tree” makes for territorial drumming). She saw three swifts winging overhead periodically, and then had one swift enter at 9:30 pm, and a second enter at 9:54 pm. The third swift was still overhead feeding near the tower when she had to leave for the night just before 10:00 pm.

Garry watched 722 Watt St in Winnipeg on May 27^th. Unfortunately, like several others, there were no swifts to be seen.

Jon was at 465 St Mary Ave in Winnipeg on May 30th. He spotted three swifts in the air just before 9:00 pm but they headed off to the south instead of going down the chimney. Unfortunate as his spot had a nice picnic table, which would have made a good home base for swift watching!

Gerald was out watching the two chimneys at the St Andrews Lock and Dam maintenance compound for a couple of nights. On May 27^th he headed out and saw one swift each drop into the north and south chimneys.

On May 30^th Tim Poole and the Selkirk Birders coordinated a monitoring session of all the possible sites in the area to see how the swifts are distributing themselves with the two original chimneys coming down and the three artificial chimney towers going up. Gerald was at the St Andrews Lock and Dam maintenance compound. For the north chimney he reported one entry at 9:35pm, and one at 9:52pm. For the south chimney he reported one entry at 9:45, one at 9:53 and two at 9:54 pm.

In Selkirk Tim was watching both the large tower and the attached tower at the Mental Health Centre, Robert was watching the administration building chimney at the Mental Health Centre, Winona was at the Merchant’s Hotel, and Ray and Sibyl were at the site on Main St. When Tim arrived there were two swifts, which increased to three after about 10 minutes. He wrote “All evening there were 2 or 3 swifts present, each time they appeared they would loop over the tower and seemingly float north in the wind… At 9:11 the flock was up to 4 birds, and seemingly 2 pairs. By 9:28 there were 3 and they seemed to be doing the classic swift chase. At 9:35 there were 5, 4 to the north between the yellow brick and the admin building, and one could be heard chittering to the south and at 9:38 we were up to 6. Great, some swifts to share between the chimneys and towers!” At 9:48 Robert noted an entry into the administration building chimney. There were no entries into the yellow brick chimney or either of the new free-standing towers. Winona had two swifts enter at the Merchants Hotel, one at 9:40pm and one at 9:49pm. Ray and Sibyl had no sightings of swifts.

For NRMP monitoring Frank and Jacquie were keeping their eyes (and Timmies) on the St Joaquim Church in La Broquerie for NRMP nights 1 and 2 (May 26^th and May 30^th). No swifts were seen the first night. If you have been following the MCSI blog for a while, you know that it is not a monitoring season without several Chimney Swift mysteries. Frank and Jacquie have our first of the year. Frank wrote, “We staked out the church in La Broquerie for night 2, and we have good news and bad news, and a bit of a mystery. There was activity in both chimneys and there were five vocal Chimney Swifts in the area from 20:10ish to 21:32, but we only had two birds in chimneys at quitting time. After two birds entered the larger chimney at 21:32, things went quiet. From our vantage point (and our degree of caffeination) I don’t think we missed any entries. Mysterious birds indeed.” We only know of the one site (two chimneys) in La Broquerie, so where did the extra swifts go?

Beth and myself both watched the chimney at Assiniboine School (on different evenings) for NRMP. Beth took the first watch for May 26^th. She saw seven swifts in the sky, with four entries just before 9:00pm. There were three remaining swifts who flew overhead several times, last seen around 9:30. As this site is an NRMP site, I monitored four days later on NRMP-2 May 30^th. It was once again cold and windy, very much like May 26^th. I had one swift that left the chimney, with a total of three swifts doing fly-bys, but no one entering the chimney. As this was unusual for this site (which is usually our biggest roost in Winnipeg), I went back the next day with warmer weather, and calmer winds to see if the lack of birds was a result of birds huddled in the chimney due to cold weather, or a real lack of birds at the site. Unfortunately, my experience was very similar. Four birds consistently circling overhead for much of the evening. 10 minutes after sunset six birds appeared and flew low to the chimney, but only one entered, and the others flew off. Just before I left the single bird came out of the chimney and flew off as well. The second swift mystery of the season. Swift roost sites can change – indeed we have seen sites “lose” and “gain” their roosts before in MCSI memory, so we will have to do our best to piece together what has happened.

Ken and Jan have been out for both NRMP nights at the Dauphin roost site. On May 26^th for the first night Ken relayed a night of much excitement, “Well, here we go again, first night of the spring national roost count, an hour before sunset and we’re thinking “why are we here this early, normally these swifts don’t show up until after sunset, oh well, we’re here now”. Got out the data sheet and filling it in when Jan says “I can hear them!” and we glance at each other and then turn our heads to the sky…. Now filling in the bottom of the data page and there’s more swifts flying by, probably same ones, 2, 4, 6, 8, . . . .24, 26, . . . 30+ well what’s happening here? We’ve only been here 10 minutes! Good, got the data sheet filled in and here they come again but they look like they are circling to go down, no way, but 6 just went down. We look at each other and say together “Oh NO” we know what’s coming or should I say going down!! With that we start counting out loud: 1, 2, 3, nope that one went past, 4, 5, . . .. quickly write down 25+, add two minutes of time to the data sheet and start again: 1, 2, 3, . . .. OK only 12+ that time: 2 minutes later 6 more go down and the sky is clear. Look at the watch and it’s still 30 minutes till sunset, a new record for Dauphin, all the swifts tucked into bed with an hour of count time to go! Total count for first night 49+ swifts.” Quite a contrast to the swift experiences by counters in more southernly areas of the province so far this year!

NRMP night #2 for the Dauphin roost went more as usual with Ken noting that the evening was quiet until around 10:00 pm when the swifts started entering the chimney. By 10:04 pm everyone had gone down for the night for a total of 39 Chimney Swifts.

— Amanda Shave

Exciting News from Selkirk

This notice comes from Tim Poole, Species at Risk Biologist, Habitat and Endangered Species Section, Wildlife, Fisheries and Resource Enforcement Branch, Agriculture and Resource Development.

The Chimney Swift is listed as threatened by the Manitoba Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act (ESEA) and the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA). For many years, the Selkirk Mental Health Centre has been one of the primary sites in Manitoba for roosting Chimney Swifts. The Powerhouse chimney, also known as the large stack, has supported large numbers of roosting swifts, the highest recorded number being 61 in 2009.

Unfortunately, this landmark swift roost had become a public safety hazard. Bricks were beginning to come loose and fall 120 feet to the ground below. In addition, two other derelict buildings on the site also support chimneys used by Chimney Swifts. The Province of Manitoba through the Department of Central Services owns and manages these buildings and commissioned formal surveys by structural engineers to address the ongoing safety issues. These surveys confirmed the worst, and it was immediately apparent that retention of all there chimneys would not be possible. Fortunately, staff from Central Services were aware of the Chimney Swifts and approached biologists from the Wildlife, Fisheries and Resource Enforcement Branch, part of Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development, to assist with producing a mitigation plan for the site. This would ensure that the provincial government were compliant with their own legislation. Additional support and advice came from members of the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative and the Canadian Wildlife Service who assisted with ensuring the province were compliant with their legislation. These partners have previously collaborated on projects to mitigate loss of Chimney Swift habitat, culminating in the successful breeding tower at Assiniboine Park Zoo (see https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/Documents/FirstUseMB.pdf).

The mitigation strategy identified that for every chimney lost, there would need to be two replacement structures provided. The higher ratio reflects the lost of such an important chimney in this area and the uncertainties that surround which site a swift might select as replacement habitat. Four structures are now either built or in the process of being built, and two will be added at a later date. This allowed for the Minister of Agriculture and Resource Development to provide an exemption under ESEA for the removal of the habitat, and for the federal government to provide a permit for the same work. The Powerhouse chimney was demolished in April 2021 before the swifts returned and the mitigation plan was implemented so that the first two structures were in place in the same period.

The first two structures are free-standing towers, based on the prototype now standing at Assiniboine Park Zoo. The first of these can be seen from Manitoba Avenue in Selkirk, being located on the grass adjacent to the Red River College building. The second is further east within the campus. Another chimney is being built on the side of the Red River building, creating a hub of sites, with there being an existing chimney on this building and the first tower adjacent. A fourth structure will be a free-standing tower. This will be constructed on the cement pad remaining from the now demolished Powerhouse chimney.

Chimney Swifts are returning to Manitoba following their long migration from their winter home in South America. Provincial biologists are working with the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative and the Selkirk Birdwatchers Club to monitor these new towers. The great news is that Gerald Machnee from the Selkirk Birdwatchers Club has documented a swift entering the eastern tower on two separate occasions, the last time on May 24^th. Thus far, we are still awaiting first confirmed use in the other two completed structures. We will continue to monitor all three towers, plus the other brick chimneys on this site, and hope that it will not be long until we record swifts using all the available habitat!

–Tim Poole

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Tomorrow is our big day for Chimney Swift monitoring in Manitoba! May 26^th is the start night for monitoring under NRMP as well as our MCSI monitoring nights. If you have already decided on a chimney to monitor we are happy to have you on board! If you are still looking for a chimney to monitor, please send me an email at mbchimneyswift.com and we can find you one!

Reminder that specific chimneys (with four or more Swifts) will be following the NRMP monitoring dates.

Selkirk Mental Health Centre, Selkirk
Merchants Hotel, Selkirk
367 Main Street, Selkirk
Providence College, Otterburne
Paroisse Catholique St Jean Baptiste, St Jean Baptiste
213 Main St. N, Dauphin
St Joachim Church, La Broquerie
St Paul’s United Church, Souris
Carmen Memorial Hall, Carmen
5000 Crescent Road West (Rufus Prince Building), Portage la Prairie
Ecole Assiniboine School, Winnipeg
2187 Portage Ave (Moorgate Apartments), Winnipeg

For all other chimneys we are following the MCSI monitoring nights. We will watch these chimneys each Wednesday night (rain date Thursday nights) from May 26^th to June 23^rd.

Both the NRMP and MCSI monitoring nights follow the same monitoring protocol and use the same datasheets which can be found on the Resources and Links page on our website (https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/resources-and-links/).

For those of you wondering what Chimney Swifts have been up to in Manitoba so far this year – keep reading for our current reports!

On May 15^th Ken Wainright saw the first Swift in Dauphin (the main roost site #600). Ken writes “Saw tree swallows in our back yard today which in the past has been a sign for me to check for swifts so when we found ourselves out fishing and catching nothing it was easy to convince ourselves to go and sit by a chimney. We arrived at approximately 9:10 with sunset at 9:25 knowing that traditionally our swifts push the darkness by coming in later. Well, less than 2 minutes later we saw the first swift of the season for the Dauphin roost #600 and it circled twice and went down. We waited another 20 minutes and saw nothing further but there here!!”

Nearby to Dauphin in Riding Mountain National Park Staff Colleen and Hannah were watching the visitor centre chimney on May 6, May 11 and May 16 with no sightings yet. We will keep our fingers crossed that they get some avian visitors to their visitor centre!

We have had Tim, Gerald, Nia, Ray and Sybil watching for Swifts in the Selkirk area. Several of the chimneys at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre have had to come down and have been replaced by artificial towers. These artificial towers are the same plan as our successful Chimney Swift tower at Assiniboine Park Zoo. We will have more information on this change in an upcoming blog post by Tim Poole.

Tim and our Selkirk volunteers have been working hard monitoring these towers to see if they are in use by the Swifts, as well as playing Swift calls (over a speaker) following a strict protocol to try and show the Chimney Swifts that these new structures are useable roosting and nesting chimneys.

On May 13^th Gerald and Winona were out at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre watching the two new towers, as well as the yellow brick chimney. Gerald had this to say “At 8:30 3 Swifts appeared, then left for a bit. At about 8:40 they flew near the west chimney then went east close to the other one. They flew around it for a while as well as the yellow brick. By 9:05 there were 4 Swifts. As it got darker it was more difficult to see them. Three disappeared, then out of the corner of my eye I saw one go into the Yellow Brick.” So no success on the first monitoring night at the new towers… Gerald was back on May 16 and saw a maximum of five Swifts in the air and had three enter the yellow brick chimney at 9:25 with one exiting at 9:27 before the monitoring period ended.

On May 18^th Gerald, Winona, Ray and Sibil were out in Selkirk watching for the birds again. Ray and Sibil was watching the Apartment on Main St and had three Chimney Swifts enter at 9:25. Gerald had one enter the chimney he was watching at 9:32 (our first for the new artificial chimney towers!) and four others flyby at 9:34. Winona had three enter her chimney at 9:34 (likely some of the four that Gerald saw in flyby). This meant a total of 10 Swifts in Selkirk that night. Very exciting that we had our first tower entry.

We also heard from some homeowners who host Chimney Swifts that their Swifts are back as well. Dave in Dominion City had Chimney Swifts back in his chimney by May 17^th and thinks that some are likely using his neighbour’s chimney as well, as he saw between 6-8 Swifts in the air at one time.

This year the Assiniboine Park Zoo was able to put trail cameras in their artificial chimney again and saw their first Swift on May 11^th!

Christie lives in the Tuxedo neighbourhood near Assiniboine park School and has had Swifts nesting in her chimney for a number of years. The week before last she emailed me with the news that they are back again this year!

A good start to the season and I hope to have many more Chimney Swift stories to relay to you all after our first monitoring night on May 26^th!!

— Amanda Shave

The Swifts are here!

There were several Chimney Swift sightings in Winnipeg over the past weekend according to eBird! There were two separate sightings in St James (total of four swifts), a sighting on Wellington Crescent in River Heights (four swifts) and a sighting in Old St Boniface (six swifts). See the map below.

eBird.org sightings of Chimney Swifts are illustrated by the red point markers. A total of 14 swifts were seen from May 6-9^th 2021.

Just a reminder that our monitoring season officially starts May 26^th, however if you would like to watch a chimney earlier or report swift sightings to us, we are always happy to hear from you! The 2021 monitoring protocol and data sheets are now up on our website. If you would like more information or are looking for a chimney to watch please contact myself at mbchimneyswift@gmail.com.

Amanda

A New Season Beckons

An Update on the Chimney Swifts and 2021 Monitoring

Spring is slowly but surely making its way into Manitoba, and the Chimney Swifts are also on their way. We are on the lookout for our first swift sightings in Manitoba, so when you see your first, please let us know! As the swifts are starting to show up in North Dakota and Minnesota, we have finalized our plans for Chimney Swift Monitoring in 2021.

Chimney Swift sightings in April and May 2021 from eBird.org. Each purple rectangle is at least one Chimney Swift.

For most sites, Chimney Swift monitoring will continue to follow the MCSI night protocol with the same format as last year. Monitoring will start on Wednesday, May 26^th and continue each Wednesday until June 23^rd (rain dates are Thursday each week). By the end of June, we should be able to determine if the Swifts have decided to make a nesting attempt in each monitored chimney.

For several of the larger roost chimneys, we will also be conducting the National Roost Monitoring Protocol (NRMP). This protocol is followed throughout Canada, where the Canadian Wildlife Service collects data on roosting chimneys that host four or more Chimney Swifts. This monitoring happens every four days for a two-week period (rather than once a week).

Both the MCSI Nights and the NRMP start on Wednesday, May 26^th this year. If you would like a MCSI volunteer lanyard to wear while monitoring, please contact me (email below) and I can send one out to you.

NRMP nights and the MCSI nights follow the same monitoring protocol (other than the dates the monitoring takes place) as well as the same data sheet. You can find our 2021 protocol and data sheet at the following links:

2021 Monitoring Protocol (pdf)

2021 Data Sheet (pdf)

2021 Data Sheet (Word)

If you are looking for a chimney to watch in your neighbourhood, send an email to myself (Amanda) at manitobachimneyswift@gmail.com and I would be happy to find one for you! We always have more chimneys than monitors each year.

For the NRMP nights the following chimneys still need volunteers to monitor:

Carmen Memorial Hall, Carmen
St Paul’s United Church, Souris
5000 Crescent Road West (Rufus Prince Building), Portage la Prairie
Ecole Assiniboine School, Winnipeg
2187 Portage Ave (Moorgate Apartments), Winnipeg

In other swift news – you may have heard, seen or read about the 800-1000 Swifts seen using chimneys at two homes in California (link to the story: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/we-lost-count-after-800-torrance-home-overrun-by-migrating-birds/). These are likely Vaux’s Swifts, as the breeding range for our local Chimney Swifts only is as far west as Saskatchewan.

One of the houses in California with Vaux’s Swifts.

While this is certainly an eye-catching phenomenon and something you would likely never forget – it is unfortunate that the story has largely been circulating with negative connotations towards Swifts in general. Both the Vaux’s and Chimney Swifts are aerial insectivores, a group of birds whose populations are undergoing steep declines, and both are protected in Canada by federal and provincial legislation. In addition to their innate value as part of our world’s biodiversity, they also provide tangible benefits to people by eating a huge number of insects we often think of as pests.

If you are worried about birds, such as swifts, entering your house, it is as easy as closing your fireplace damper. This leaves the chimney open for swifts to use as roosting and nesting habitat, while keeping the inside of your house bird free. In fact, we strongly encourage closing your dampers, as Swifts can get confused by the extra light source (associating light with the chimney exit).

To learn more about Chimney Swifts and separate fact from fiction, check out our factsheets about hosting Swifts and how you can be a Chimney Swift champion!

Chimney Swift: Manitoba’s Flying Cigar – https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/Documents/factsheet1.pdf

Are Chimney Swifts Using My Chimney – https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/Documents/factsheet2.pdf

Become a Chimney Swift Champion – https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/Documents/factsheet3.pdf

— Amanda Shave

A Guest Blog

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

On the return flight…

At the end of October 2020, we watched the Chimney Swifts fly southward to their nonbreeding grounds in South America through citizen scientist sightings in eBird. As we approach the time when the swifts return here in Manitoba, I thought we could take a look at where they were sighted over the winter – and where they are now.

First, a quick reminder of the Chimney Swift breeding, migration and nonbreeding ranges.

There are fewer observations of Chimney Swifts in their nonbreeding range, so I have combined the months of December, January and February together in the map below. You can see that swifts were sighted in Belize (4 swifts seen on Dec 5), Costa Rica (28 swifts seen from Dec 2-Jan 24), the Cayman Islands (1 swift seen on Feb 4), Peru (1 swift seen on Dec 29 and 1 on Jan 4) and Chile. It is strange for me to think of our “local” birds being seen on the same birding list as Tinamous, Toucans, Trogans and Parrots! Check out this eBird list from Peru where there must have been some great birding (in addition to Chimney Swifts, of course) https://ebird.org/checklist/S78853414

The sightings in Central America are outside of what is thought to be the non-breeding range. Were these individuals on migration? Or did they spend the winter in Central America instead of heading a bit further south? Chimney Swifts are as much of a mystery (if not more) at the non-breeding grounds as they are when they nest in Manitoba! For the Chimney Swifts reported in Belize – the birders made a note that the swifts were in migration still moving southwards, however the other sightings are unknown.

Map of Chimney Swift sightings in eBird.org for December 2020 and January-February 2021.

Our next map is for March 2021 and you can certainly see that Chimney Swifts are on the move! A big difference from the locations that we saw from the winter. You can see swifts moving up Central America, arriving at the Gulf Coast and then moving up through the United States. Although many individuals are still in the lower states, there is one enterprising group (4 swifts) that was seen by a citizen scientist in Lansing, Michigan reported on March 25th.

Map of Chimney Swift sightings from eBird.org for March 2021.

Chimney Swifts usually start arriving in Manitoba from May 1^st (earliest) onwards, so another month and a bit before we will start seeing the swifts here. MCSI is preparing our 2021 season protocol for our Chimney Swift monitoring program – and we look forward to working with all of our volunteers in 2021. I will update our blog with more swift migration action near the end of April – so keep an eye out!

— Amanda Shave

Our 2020 Chimney Swift Champions

The Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative is please to announce this year’s Chimney Swift Champions! Chimney Swift Champions are recognized for the work they do to protect Chimney Swifts in Manitoba. This can range from preserving habitat to education. Due to COVID-19 restrictions our plaque presentations have been a little different this year (the now ubiquitous “curbside dropoff”) but our appreciation for these individuals is in no way diminished! A big thank you to each of our Champions this year, the work you do is very appreciated!

Our first Champion this year was House of Hesed on Edmonton St in Winnipeg. Moe (Executive Director) and the home residents have been incredibly caring and interested in the Chimney Swifts using their chimney. The chimney was occupied by nesting chimney swifts in 2018 when Moe heard noises coming from their chimney. They partnered with MCSI to repair the chimney in 2019. While there were no breeding swifts using the chimney this year, there did seem to be evidence that swifts had used it as a roost site earlier in the spring.

Moe Feakes at House of Hesed with the Champion plaque in front the fireplace connected to the repaired chimney.

Our second Champion this year was Guent Salzmann. Guent was the catalyst for setting up the Nature Manitoba Bluebird Fund. This fund has allowed us to repair and clean many chimneys, protecting and preserving critical habitat for breeding and roosting chimney swifts. The Bluebird Fund was also key in the relocation and re-building of an artificial chimney swift tower from the Old Grace Hospital site to Assiniboine Park Zoo, where it became the first artificial tower in Manitoba to successfully host chimney swifts. Guent passed away in November 2020, but his care for nature will live on. For more about Guent’s life and legacy see Nature Manitoba’s January newsletter at https://www.naturemanitoba.ca/news-articles/remembering-guent-salzmann

Our third set of Champions this year are Rhonda and Craig Baxter. Barb hit a jackpot in summer of 2019 when she was approached by Rhonda during an unassuming session monitoring swifts in St Adolphe. Rhonda had approached Barb to ask about the birds in her chimney. Prior to that conversation Barb had thought she had the nesting/ roosting sites in St Adolphe pinned down! In fact, the Baxter’s had nesting swifts with young in her chimney in 2018 and 2019. Additionally, their chimney has a terracotta collar on it, a type of material that we didn’t think that swifts were able to use! Since that fateful meeting Rhonda and Craig have been a delight to work with. Our program was able to offer them a chimney cleaning last year, and Rhonda was able to put off roof work this spring until Barb was able to determine that no Chimney Swifts were using the chimney this year.

Our fourth Champion this year is Roxy Lanes. Roxy Lanes has been a monitoring spot for our volunteers for a number of years, but a twist of fate brought MCSI and the bowling lanes together in a different way in 2020. Ward Christianson, one of our volunteers was out to see a Summer Tanager (rare to see in Winnipeg). It turns out this was right near the home of Roxy Lanes owner Melissa, and they got talking about Chimney Swifts instead! Roxy Lanes is a converted movie theatre – certainly an interesting home for the swifts! We were able to repair the front chimney (where swifts have been observed in the past, including this summer), as well as a chimney on the side of the building that previously had a large hole near the bottom. We have a number of other monitoring sites that have swifts using chimneys less than 15m from each other, so it will be interesting to see if swifts will start to use this second chimney, now that it is suitable habitat again.

Before (left) and after (right) repair to the side chimney at Roxy Lanes. We suspect the large hole would create cold drafts, discouraging Chimney Swift Nesting. Now a cleanout has been installed and the chimney is ready for swifts!

Before (left) and after (right) repairs to the front chimney at Roxy Lanes. This chimney has been home to swifts for several breeding season (looks like the pigeons also approve).

Last but not least, our fifth Champion for this year is Nicole Firlotte. Nicole is a member of our MCSI Steering Committee. Through her work as the Manager of the Biodiversity, Habitat and Endangered Species section for Manitoba Nicole has been instrumental in enforcing protection of swifts and swift habitat through the Manitoba Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act. This has included mitigation at the Old Grace Hospital site, installation of the artificial tower at Assiniboine Park Zoo (part of the aforementioned mitigation), worked with a realty company to uncap a chimney to replace another one being lined, and continues to be critical in mitigation taking place at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre for chimneys used by Chimney Swifts. In addition to all of that Nicole has monitored sites at the Old Grace and Fleetwood Apartments for MCSI for many years.

Nicole Firlotte with her Chimney Swift Champion plaque.

— Amanda Shave

2020 Monitoring Season Results

As the Chimney Swifts make a break for the warm weather of South America, we can re-live our own memories of summer weather by checking out the results of the 2020 monitoring season! This was certainly a season to remember, mainly due to the impact that COVID-19 had in Manitoba, across Canada and worldwide. Here in Manitoba, MCSI started off with a backyard Chimney Swift watch. As the government of Manitoba started to open the province back up, we switched to a monitoring season more like the usual.

Another difference this year was the cancellation of the Canada-wide National Roost Monitoring Program in 2020 due to COVID-19. The MCSI Steering Committee replaced these nights with the MCSI Monitoring Nights each Wednesday from late May to late June. We had pretty good weather in that approximately 30-day period, with only one Wednesday being interrupted by a thunderstorm (with people monitoring on the following Thursday instead).

Once the summer nesting season moved into full swing, we had volunteers observing Chimneys Swifts both in the evening (roosting), as well as during the day. We were able to get several confirmed nesting successes this year (always a difficult task with this enigmatic bird), as well as other nesting attempts identified by following swift behaviour and numbers of individuals at the chimneys.

Notable in the fall were several instances of Chimney Swifts hanging around quite late in the season. The roosting chimney in Dauphin did not have a fall count of zero individuals until September 7^th (at which point it was -3 degrees). The first zero count of the fall at the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound (our last known site with swifts in Manitoba) was September 12^th. The swifts had persisted through a patch of cold and windy weather, before heading off to warmer climates.

Overall, we had monitors out in 25 communities across Manitoba, watching a total of 185 sites (21 new sites this year). Some of these sites had no Chimney Swifts, some sites had Chimney Swifts using chimneys, while others still had Chimney Swifts around but more searching is required to find where in the neighbourhood they are nesting/ roosting.

As always, the MCSI Roost and Nest Site data base is available on the “Monitoring Results” page of the website. This document summarizes the high counts of Chimneys Swifts at sites, if a site was used for nesting or roosting, and successes/ failures of nest (if known).

The MCSI Monitoring Nights results are also available on the “Monitoring Results” page of the website. This table gives a snap-shot into Chimney Swift numbers at each site over an approximately 30-day period.

–Amanda Shave

Southward bound!

Chimney Swift range map from Birds of North America, 2020

Our last update on the locations of our Manitoba Chimney Swifts was in mid-September, as we ended off our Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative monitoring season. I thought I would pop in with a quick “where are they now” for swifts across North America. For a quick reminder here is a map of the breeding, migration and nonbreeding ranges for Chimney Swifts. They breed across central and eastern Canada and the United States. On migration Chimney Swifts pass through Mexico, central America and the Caribbean before reaching the nonbreeding range in western south America.

Citizen Science sightings of Chimney Swifts in September 2020 from: eBird.org

Our next look in at the birds comes from the month of October in the image below. Here we can see that the pattern of citizen science sightings of Chimney Swifts has changed quite a bit. There are no more sightings in Manitoba. In Canada only one swift was seen in Montreal and some left in southern Ontario (most of these records are from the first week in October). Meanwhile, there are swifts reported on the Yucatan Peninsula and in Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in central America. New on this map are the presence of some Chimney Swifts who have reached their winter range with sightings of at least 85 individuals across Colombia.

Citizen Science sightings of Chimney Swifts in October 2020 from: eBird.org

At least if we can’t travel this winter, we can live vicariously through the Chimney Swifts! Stay tuned for future migration updates as we head into late fall.

If you’d like to look at the Chimney Swift maps in more detail below is the link in eBird for all data so far in 2020. You can change the date range for Chimney Swift sightings in the top right-hand corner. You can also zoom in to see exactly where the swifts were sighted (as an example, check out Bogota, Colombia) and see what kinds of habitat they are using during migration and the nonbreeding period.

Follow this link for the current eBird species map.

–Amanda Shave