Author: mbchimneyswift@gmail.com

MCSI CANADA DAY BLOG – JULY 1, 2022 EDITION

Canada Day is a special day to reflect on our past, assess the present, and chart a future path. Hopefully, the celebration of our country’s natural history is never taken for granted and certainly never confined to one official day. By contributing to conservation efforts on an ongoing basis, we help ensure the rich biological diversity of our country persists. With that in mind, let’s take a quick peek at how the breeding Chimney Swifts are progressing at their nest sites in St Adolphe…using that information as a template should support your future monitoring efforts elsewhere.

The cadence of this spring has been difficult. The Chimney Swifts are still dealing with unstable weather conditions – cold nights below 8 C, strong daytime winds, and yet more heavy rain storms. No inflexion point has been seen for the full-on arrival of stable “summer” weather. By Canada Day, I am usually watching for signs of hatching as nest sites have been trending to early July hatching and late July fledging. However, in 2022, I am focusing on tracking sites to see if incubation has any traction.

Incubation is the toughest nesting stage to pin down with respect to the date of onset. Start dates are nearly impossible to establish unless you have a nest cam or viewing port inside a tower etc. But it is possible to identify if the Chimney Swifts are incubating by using monitoring data. In ascending order of good, better, and best, I use 3 criteria which usually indicate that Chimney Swifts are on eggs. For monitoring sessions of at least 60 minutes, signs of incubation are: 1. % attendance, or time spent in the chimney, is > 50%; 2. A duration-in interval <10 min. (for an entry where a partner is not obviously flying nearby and doesn’t enter); and/or 3. A classic incubation exchange i.e., an entry followed by an exit 30-120 sec. later. Classic incubation exchanges take place 1 X hour (give or take a few minutes) at a site with 2 breeding adults.

In an earlier blog we talked about the arrival and nest building stages of nesting. Pairs of Chimney Swifts could be seen flying together with wings stretched upright in their “V” displays; birds could be seen stalling at dead branch ends or hitting on small twigs; pairs often approached nest sites together but the trailing bird could fly off after the leading partner entered. After a few minutes, the partner would enter the nest site and both birds would leave together. As incubation becomes established, single birds will approach and enter, and single birds will depart the nest sites.

To give you an idea of how breeding activity has been progressing in St Adolphe recently, here is a string of annotated monitoring data from the two Club Amical nest sites:

Club Amical Mon. June 20th (75 min session): 

SE Club: entry at 11:32; entry at 11:38; 2 swifts exit together at 11:51; entry at 12:04; entry at12:11; pair leaves together at 12:31. Attendance = 61% which is above the 50% criterion threshold – this indicates incubation in progress.

NE Club: entry at 11:41; exit at 11:56. Attendance = 20% unless the partner was in the chimney! Based on the activity seen, incubation is not likely in progress.

Club Amical Wed. June 22nd (90 min session):

SE Club: entry at 9:09; exit at 9:19; entry 9:24; exit at 9:43; entry at 9:43:27; exit at 9:50; entry at 10:36; entry at 10:39:00; entry at 10:39:11 = 3 IN. NB: with a helper identified, the activity rates and patterns of use are not easily compared to other sites where 2 breeding adults are present.

NE Club: exit at 9:18; entry at 9:27; entry at 10:29:48; exit at 10:30:34 = CLASSIC INCUBATION EXCHANGE, the first seen this year! The site is likely unattended from 9:18 to 9:27 (10% unattended). Incubation is indicated.

Club Amical Sat. June 25th (90 min. session):

SE CLUB: entry at 12:55; entry at 1:10 compare to circling bird on June 20th = same style – maybe key to i.d. individual? 2 birds exit together at 1:17. Attendance ~24% would NOT indicate incubation. Compare with June 20th = flip flop of status.

NE CLUB: exit at 12:08; entry at 12:52. Behaviour observations indicate partner in air at time of exit at 12:08. Attendance ~51% which supports incubation is occurring. 

Club Amical Wed. June 29th (90 min. session; start at 9:40 AM, end at 11:10 AM):

SE CLUB: entry at 9:58 (pair approaches the chimney, the lead bird enters while the trailing bird departs the area); exit at 10:24; entry at 11:13 (approach by a single bird). NB: a 2 + 1 pattern = pair approach, both enter and both exit together, then a single bird approaches, enters and then exits, may reflect that a helper is on site. The cadence/frequency of entries/exits at a helper-based nest site is different compared to a nest site without a helper being present. This pattern may be picked up on during frequent, long monitoring sessions, particularly when young are being fed. For this session, ~33% attendance does not indicate incubation but again, all is different at a site with a helper, so who’s in there anyway?

NE CLUB: entry at 9:43:33; exit at 9:44:54 = CLASSIC INCUBATON EXCHANGE, comparable to June 22^nd. Entry at 10:47; ~62 min. between-visit; 1 in chimney at end of session with a duration-in interval = 23 min. NB: it is worth noting that if two different 60 min. blocks were used to compare data, the assessment of stage of nesting would differ! For the first block of time (9:40-10:40), only the classic incubation exchange would be captured = incubation indicated; in the second block (10:10-11:10), shifted 30 minutes after start time, no classic incubation exchange would have been seen and a duration-in interval of 23 min. would yield an attendance rate of 38% = no incubation indicated. This leads back to the point that many, long sessions are required to really understand what is happening at a nest site – especially in the early days of incubation! After hatching, activity increases and becomes more predictable. Frequent feeding must take place or the young will die!

Here’s the summary for the other St Adolphe nest sites:

Brodeur Bros./Daycare = incubation is underway; 73% attendance on June 23; classic incubation exchange seen on June 27. 

Church = approaching incubation; ~33% attendance on June 23 and ~48% attendance on June 26. 

Main St = may be close to incubation; ~46% attendance on June 23 but only 25% attendance on June 27 which was a poor feeding day – no local feeding activity was observed.

The clock is ticking…Chimney Swifts do not have an open-ended breeding season. Fledglings must be out of the chimney in advance of migration so they can develop flight proficiency. By mid-August, Manitoba Chimney Swifts typically assemble in pre-migratory groups before migrating south to the wintering grounds. They must move ahead of an impoverished food supply. Our Chimney Swifts are gone well before birds leave from more southern latitudes. In London, ON, our colleague Winnie Wake may see Chimney Swifts through to the end of September!

So, what are the important dates for incubation to start in Manitoba in order to meet those season-ender constraints? We have to work backwards on this calculation.

• Aug. 16th is the latest successful fledging date for a breeding attempt in St Adolphe (Brodeur Bros., 2010). Let’s figure out incubation starts that make the Aug. 16^th deadline…
• We need to factor in two stages of nesting: the known range of incubation (18-21 days; rarely 16 days) and the typical range of feeding before fledging occurs (28-30 days). Remember that Hatching Day = Day 1 of Feeding!
• Using the maximum length of incubation = 21 days, and the maximum known length of feeding young before fledging = 30 days, the incubation start date = June 28. Hatching = July 18^th, then fledging would follow on Aug. 16^th.
• Using the minimum length of incubation = 18 days and the minimum known length of feeding young before fledging = 28 days, the incubation start date = July 3. Hatching = July 20^th and fledging would take place Aug. 16^th.
• To summarize, for Aug. 16th fledging, incubation would likely need to start between June 28 to July 3. Have you checked the calendar today?

So, how do you know hatching has taken place? Hatching will be telegraphed by an increase of entry/exit events to a rate of ~2-3 X hour for 6-7 days as brooded young are fed. After the young can regulate their own temperatures, both adults may leave the nest site to forage. Feeding rates for non-brooded young rise to ~4 X hour but higher rates of ~6-7 X hour are seen when a big juicy patch of insects is available locally. If 1 helper is onsite, feeding rates typically are up to ~2 times higher than at a site where only the 2 breeding adults are tending their offspring. Check out last year’s blog, Diary of a Helper, for more details: https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/st-adolphe-in-2021-and-more/

Tracking Chimney Swifts at nest sites is a complex activity. These birds do not live by static textbook formulae – their dynamic lives are driven by changing weather conditions and food availability etc. over the breeding season. Think of your monitoring efforts as capturing pieces of a complex and shape-shifting puzzle, a puzzle of big blue sky with Chimney Swifts scattered about. Sometimes birds are feeding apart, sometimes they are flying close together with pair bond “V” displays. Sometimes birds are hitting dead branch ends. Some swifts may have zippy single entries/exits. Some are goofy, slow fliers which have trouble dropping into nest sites, thereby telegraphing fledglings in their early flight training days post-fledging. Along the way your monitoring sessions will add puzzle pieces to the overall picture. Infrequent, short sessions gather puzzle pieces with snippets of information; these are very good for verification of site use. Frequent, lengthy sessions harvest more robust puzzle pieces that have more information in them; these are necessary for identifying stages of nesting.

Let us know what your Chimney Swifts are doing at their nest sites. Do what you can, when you can, and keep flying those monitoring reports over to us at MCSI. We always appreciate your input and the Chimney Swifts will be well served by your involvement! Knowledge is a powerful currency. Together, we can continue to apply our knowledge to support Chimney Swifts living in Manitoba.

Oh, and be prepared to wonder sometimes if your puzzle piece is a flyaway belonging to another picture altogether. Head scratchers do happen. The challenge of decoding swift behaviour may take a rear-view mirror at season’s end. Let’s hope the rest of the breeding season plays out in a manageable fashion – for the Chimney Swifts and for all of us monitors!

–Happy Swifting in the days to come, Barb.

This week, we are covering monitoring sessions that look place over our last two weeks of Chimney Swift monitoring. Our spring monitoring season officially ended June 22^nd, so thank you to all of the volunteers who took part! That being said, we do continue monitoring through the nesting season. So if you’d like to continue monitoring your chimney, or check out a new chimney that didn’t get watched during the beginning part of our monitoring, we’d love to have you stay on!

The majority of our Chimney Swift reports in this blog come from communities outside of Winnipeg! We will stop in at Selkirk, Lockport, Lower Fort Garry, Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Dauphin, Lac du Bonnet, Souris, St Jean Baptiste, St Francois Xavier. And of course, we have Winnipeg as well.

We will start today off with a long look at the Selkirk Mental Health centre towers and chimney. The Province of Manitoba also does monitoring at this site – as the towers were put up in part to satisfy provincial requirements to mitigate impacts to the Chimney Swift (by providing habitat) when existing chimneys were removed last year.

On June 2^nd Aditya Gandhi and Aynsly Woods were out monitoring from 8:30-10:00 pm. Aynsly watched the west tower but had no sightings of swifts using the tower or in the air. At the same time Aditya was watching the yellow brick chimney, the east tower and the stack replacement tower. There were also no sights or sounds of swifts here.

On June 6^th Aditya and Aynsly were back at the Selkirk Mental Health Center again from 8:30-10:03pm. This time they had more luck! Aditya watched the west tower. For the majority of the event there were swifts flying around in varying numbers, from 2-8 individuals. At 9:40 pm two swifts entered the chimney and 10 minutes later one exited. So, one individual was left in the chimney. At the same time Aynsly was watched the attached tower and the Administration building chimney. She also just had swifts flying overhead until 9:30 pm when two swifts headed down the attached tower. She had no sightings after that.

On June 13^th Tim Poole joined Aditya and Aynsly at the Selkirk Mental Health Center for a daytime monitoring session. First, we have Aynsly who monitored the stack replacement tower from 10:04-11:30 am. She had four swifts enter the tower, and no exits. This is unusual behavior for this number of Chimney Swifts to enter the tower during the day. Daytime entries are usually nesting birds, either a single bird or a pair.

At the same time Aditya was watching the east tower from 10:05 -11:05 am. There were four swifts flying around on a regular basis. At 11:15 two swifts entered the tower and did not exit until 11:45 am. After the pair had gone down the tower, the remain two swifts continued to fly overhead.

Tim had his hands full watching the Administration building chimney, the attached tower and the west tower (all close together) from 10:04-11:30 am. Shortly after Tim arrived there was an exit from the Administration building chimney. About 10 minutes later there were six swifts flying overhead. Tim noticed that these swifts looked like two sets of pairs (doing the “V” courtship display) and two other birds. At 10:20 am one swift went down the chimney and exited four minutes later. Then at 10:48 am a swift entered again and exited six minutes later. This pattern continued for two more sets of entries and exits of the Administration building chimney. So a total of 4 entries and 5 exits and 6 swifts (in three pairs) were observed. Other than the swifts overhead, there was no action around the west tower or the attached tower.

On June 8^th Louanne Reid, and Gillian and Gwynn Richards monitored the north chimney on the Orange Block building in Brandon. At 9:30 pm they had one swift go down the chimney and a second swift flyby overhead, heading north. There was no other action from that point until they finished up at 10:17 pm.

On June 15^th Glennis Lewis and Louanne Reid were out at the Orange Block in Brandon for a roosting session. Glennis had no entries or flybys at the west chimney. Louanne had a possible sighting of two exits at 9:23 pm and 9:24 pm, but this sighting was not for sure. Everyone has those moments where you look away for a second and boom – possible swift(s)! Louanne stayed until 10:08 pm but did not see the swifts again (so no entries). This would mark the first time there were two swifts at this chimney in 2022, as previous session just picked up one swift.

On June 22^nd the most of the group (Louanne, Glennis and Gywnn) were watching the north chimney at the Orange Block building. Despite last week’s hopefulness of two swifts, there was only one entry at the chimney once again. Instead, similar to June 8^th, a second swift flew by to the west.

Pat Start monitored the Hong Kong chimney in Dauphin on June 15^th. She saw two swifts enter the chimney for the night. This is a nesting chimney, so a pair makes sense! Pat then moved over to the roosting chimney in Dauphin at 10:16 pm and stayed until 10:28 pm. In that period, she counted 10 swifts down the roosting chimney.

The Dauphin crew was out monitoring on June 22^nd. I’ll send it to Ken to give us the summary report, “Well, last night was a temperature-pleasant night for watching swifts in Dauphin and the thunderstorm cloud just missed us to the east. Estimating that our swifts might be sitting on eggs we’d figured on seeing a pair of swifts at each nesting chimney, one inside and one foraging outside with maybe a turn around just prior to sunset and that is what seems to have happened. Monitoring was being done on chimneys 2018-14 & 15 with incidental observations towards the roost chimney #600. Roost chimney activity showed there might be 5-6 swifts there for the evening. These observations may mean egg hatching close to the end of June/beginning of July, there will be lots of food by then for sure if what bothered us last night is any example!!”

Donna Milovitch monitored for chimney swifts in Lac du Bonnet on June 12^th and 13^th. On the 12^th she watched at Casey’s Inn with no activity, and the same lack of swifts occurred the next day while she was watching the chimney on Gran’s Bakery.

On June 18^th myself (Amanda) and Ariel (our summer student) were out in southwestern Manitoba to hold Manitoba IBA program activities. Luckily, we had time on the Saturday afternoon to monitor chimneys in Souris. I watched the Whistling Donkey chimney first. I had an entry at 12:34 pm, and an exit at 12:37 pm. I saw four additional swifts flying around while the one swift was down the chimney. Due to us trying to blitz many chimneys, I didn’t stick around longer! NEXT! I then moved to the Kowalchuk Funeral home. I watched this chimney for 62 minutes. There were up to six swifts flying overhead, but no interaction with the chimney for the longest time. About 40 minutes into the monitoring period one swift popped out of the chimney! I watched for 20 minutes longer, hoping to see a second swift use the chimney (to confirm nesting via behaviour) but no luck. NEXT! Then I moved to watch a residential property (known as the “White House”) for 30 minutes. Just three minutes after I arrived a had a possible exit. At first, I wasn’t sure if this was truly an exit I saw (similar to Louanne above), but upon reviewing my monitoring sheet, after my “exit” the number of swifts consistently overhead increased by one, so I determined it was likely truly an exit.

While I was doing this Ariel watched the Chocolate Shop chimney for 60 minutes and moved to the Lagasse shop chimney for 75 minutes, but with no chimney use at either. That is not to say there weren’t swifts around! 5-6 swifts were periodically flying very low over the chimney before veering off over the nearby river and park (likely feeding), and rocketing around in the wind. I joined Ariel here for 20 minutes. At 2:33 pm one swift hovered over the Chocolate Shop chimney, but no interest was shown in the chimney after that. It was an incredibly hot and windy day while we were watching, so that may have influenced the swifts’ behaviour.

We have several session’s worth of monitoring from Nelson Chubey next from the school in St Jean Baptiste! First we start on June 8^th when Nelson watched from 8:26-8:44 pm. This quick monitoring session confirmed chimney use and netted Nelson one entry by a swift. Nelson was back the next Wednesday for a full monitoring period. He had one swift exit the chimney at 8:33 pm, just before a light rain started at 8:35 pm. After a period with no activity, he had a swift enter the chimney at 9:01 pm and then a second enter at 9:33pm. Shortly after that (9:39 pm) he noted that “two more swifts almost went down. [They] loudly hovered over chimney entrance for a couple seconds before flying off.” So that was two swifts in the chimney and two more overhead, that were also interested.

Luc Blanchette was also Chimney Swift monitoring in St Jean Baptist on June 15^th, but at the church. He saw a maximum of three swifts in the air at 9:19 pm, before one swift entered the chimney. After that he only saw groups of two swifts, and then dropped down to a single swift after Nelson had his last entry for the night. So we had one swift on June 15^th who must have either snuck in a chimney after monitoring was finished or found a different chimney in town to use.

One more week passes and Nelson is back at the chimney for June 22^nd. This time there was even more activity! He noted two exits at 8:36 pm and 8:37 pm. Then an entry at 8:10 pm where the swift stayed in the chimney for 20 minutes before exiting again. Starting at 9:18 pm there were three entries. After all three swifts were down the chimney there were still three swifts in the air.

On June 17 in Carman Rhonda Smith had an incidental sighting of six swifts flying in the vicinity of the two known Chimney Swift chimneys in town. Rhonda also mentioned “I’m suspecting there may be one or two more as there seems to be single swifts coming in from totally different flight lanes/ patterns than the larger groups of three or more. I call them “sneaky swifts” because they are always beelining from points afar and not swifting around in a bunch with the others.”

On June 16^th Mike and Michele Tumber monitored the St Francois Xavier R.C. Church chimney during the afternoo, to see if they could see signs of a nesting attempt setting up. They saw a maximum of five swifts in the air (which is unusually high for their site), but had no use of the chimney. Mike was back for a daytime monitoring session on the afternoon of June 22^nd. Shortly after arriving he saw two swifts in the air. For the last 30 minutes of the 90-minute monitoring session he moved over to watch a new chimney in town. Mike and Michele have in the past indicated that this new chimney is the only other appropriate chimney they know of in the area. Unfortunately, Mike had no better luck there either!

And the Chimney Swifts at Lower Fort Garry continue to get up to their mischievous ways. On June 16^th Gerald arrived a bit late to his monitoring site at the Fur Loft at Lower Fort Garry. Before he could even make his way over there though he saw a swift diving into the chimney on the building by the bell tower. Swifts have used this chimney before, but not for a number of years. No other swifts were seen or head after that, although it sounds like the mosquitos enjoyed Gerald’s company!

Then on June 22^nd we have this report from Gerald at Lower Fort Garry, “… as I approached the Fort I looked at the building on the left just inside the west gate. A swift flew out of the chimney did a loop or two and went back down. Holy Moly! That was at 9:00 PM. Then another Swift tried to go down. It flew around for about 8 minutes taking dives at that chimney. It finally went in at 9:09 PM. I was inside on the path that goes straight east to the Big House. I glanced over to the south to the other chimneys. Then as I looked back west a swift did a dive into that chimney by the gate. So that may have been Swift #3 unless I missed an exit. So the moral of the story is, we have a new chimney to watch. I do not know if this would be the same Swift that took a dive into the south side last week.”

Winona Hook was at Lower Fort Garry in that same afternoon, but did not see any swifts, only a few swallows.

Cal Cuthbert watched the Trinity United Church in Portage la Prairie on June 15th for an hour around sunset. He had two entries at the shorter “south” chimney on the west side of the church. No exits were seen.

Gordon Oglivie was able to keep an eye on two nearby sites at once on June 22^nd for the evening roost period in Portage la Prairie. The first site was the Olina building, with no activity. The second site was the MTS building and here there was some activity. Shortly after Gordon arrived at 9:15 pm one swift exited the chimney, and then at 9:55 pm two individuals went down the chimney for the night.  We don’t know quite what is happening in this chimney – but this observation allows us to determine that the site is occupied, which is critical to know from year to year.

Karla Guyn and Jim Devries watched the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance building chimneys in Lockport on June 22^nd for 90 minutes in the evening. Both chimneys on the building were active. The north chimney had a set of entries and exits (a pair for each) starting at 9:10 pm before the pair headed down the chimney for the night at 9:45 pm. The swifts at the south chimney were exhibiting very similar behaviour. It started at 8:39 pm with two swifts exiting at the same time, before entering one at a time around 10-20 minutes later. At 9:23 pm once again the pair exited the chimney at the same time. The swifts entered the chimney for the night at 9:35 pm and 9:46 pm. There were two more swifts seen over the chimneys (so 6 swifts total), but these “extra” swifts did not use the chimneys on the building.

Next, we will fly on over to Winnipeg!

Donna was back in town on June 15^th when she watched the chimney at the Old King’s Theatre building and the Viscount apartments in the afternoon. There was no activity at the Viscount Apartments, but she finally saw some action at the Old King’s Theatre! Two swifts exited the chimney about five minutes after she started watching. There was no other activity associated with the chimney after that, but there were two more swifts in the air, for a total of four swifts in the area.

Donna was back at the monitoring on June 16^th when she watched the Viscount Apartments during the roosting period. She saw the first two swifts of the season at this site! The two swifts went down the chimney at 9:40 pm and 9:45 pm respectively. Donna noted “[The] chimney is tall, straight up from the ground. I almost missed them but caught one and waited for another, which almost escaped me as well!”

Two days later Donna checked out the Marner Apartment. This time her luck didn’t hold. She saw two swifts fly in the vicinity of the nearby Ecole Assiniboine School, but no swifts using the chimney on her building.

Donna also had an incidental sighting of four Chimney Swifts circling over the Assiniboine Park Zoo Tower on June 19^th.

On June 23^rd we also had another volunteer at the Assiniboine Park Zoo tower. They saw an entry and an exit early on in their monitoring period. They had an entry for the night at 9:48 pm, but no other activity until the finished monitoring at 10:15 pm.

Blair Reid watched the chimney at 261 Youville St from 8:44-9:55 pm on June 15^th. There was a lot of action at this chimney with an entry/exit cycle at 8:48/8:59 pm. Then a swift headed down the chimney at 9:07 pm, and a second entered at 9:20 pm. One swift then exited four minutes later, but then went down the chimney for the night at 9:36 pm. So a pair here!

Gary Franzmann and Marj Kendall were at 1181 Pembina Highway on June 15^th. They had 2-3 chimney swifts pass by their chimney around five times but no use of the chimney. By 9:15 pm rain had started and they had no more sightings after that.

On June 19^th Garry Budyk spend 86 minutes with the pair of swifts at 722 Watt St. As Garry mention, “The happy couple are busy busy!”. Between the pair, the swifts had three entries and two exits. Based on the fact that were significant periods of time where neither swift was in the chimney, the swifts at Garry’s chimney were probably either nest building or in the process of laying eggs (incubation doesn’t start until all eggs are laid). If the swifts were incubating eggs the swifts would have spent longer in the chimney overall.

On June 16^th Ron Bazin watched at Marion Hotel in St Boniface. He had four Chimney Swifts flying overhead throughout the monitoring period. At 9:48 pm two Chimney Swifts came flying in quickly and quietly before heading down the chimney.

The next Wednesday (June 22^nd) Ron headed over to the Archibald Storage building, also in St Boniface. The first entry was at 8:44 pm, followed by a second entry at 8:59 pm. At the same time (8:59 pm) there was also an exit. Then at 9:12pm there was a second exit. The swifts went into the chimney for the night at 9:23 pm and 9:48 pm. Ron noted that all birds were silent while arriving and leaving the site. Monitoring is so much easier when the swifts are still announcing their presence. However, this is a good reminder that close attention is needed when monitoring!!

I had two notable things happen this week. The first was a message passed onto me from Nature Manitoba that a house in Tuxedo had heard an “thump” and flapping in the bottom of their chimney. They thought a Chimney Swift adult and nest had possibly fallen down the chimney and gotten stuck at an angle between the damper and the chimney wall. I was able to stop by on the afternoon of June 21^st and stick my arm up the fireplace. There was for sure a bird in there (confirmed by some feathers as I blindly stuck my phone camera up to take a photo), but it felt oddly large to be a Chimney Swift. Regardless of the type of bird, it was stuck and it needed to come out! Since it was quite large and the damper was quite small it took some manoeuvring to get it through the damper. To my surprise I had pulled out a female Bufflehead (duck). It was still uninjured and quite feisty after its ill-advised adventure, so it was released outside. Buffleheads are a cavity nesting duck, so perhaps it got a bit confused between a tree cavity and a chimney. Quite the adventure for the homeowners and myself!

On June 22^nd I meet up with Josh Dewitt and five youth from Canadian Wildlife Federation’s Wild Outside program at the roost at 424 River Avenue. This program connects youth to nature and conservation opportunities both in and outside cities. While we were waiting for the Chimney Swift show to start I gave a brief presentation about the Chimney Swifts and got asked many excellent questions. The Chimney Swifts started entering the chimney at 9:57 pm, and entered in waves until the last few trickled in at 10:14 pm when it was too dark to see the chimney. Prior to the entries starting, we only saw a maximum of six swifts in the air, but we counted at total of 64 swifts down the chimney! As a bonus I also got to meet Pam and Marilyn, our volunteers who are usually at St Mary’s Road United Church, as they were there for the show as well.

That’s all for next week, I’ll be back next week for more swift findings!

-Amanda

I covered part of our cold, cloudy and windy swift night on June 2^nd in the last blog, but as we move into week three in this blog (focusing on June 5-11^th) thankfully the weather becomes much more friendly for the swifts and swift monitors alike!

Outside of Winnipeg we have reports from quite a large variety of places this week. We will head off to Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Souris, St Francois Xavier, Swan River, Dauphin, St Jean Baptiste, La Broquerie, Lower Fort Garry, Otterburne and Carmen to see what the swifts (and monitors) were up to.

I was in Swan River the nights of June 6^th and 7^th and so watched the newly repaired chimney at 518 Main St. This chimney was observed to have swifts in 2020 by Ken de Smet, and was repaired by the MCSI team in 2021. Unfortunately, I did not spot any birds using the chimney (or in town) in 2021, and the same trend continued in 2022. In better news, the owner of 518 Main St was awarded our Chimney Swift Champion award last year – the first of our outdoor plaques, and it was a pleasure to see the plaque up on Main St. A big thanks to Sean Charlebois for his work with the Chimney Swift chimney and outreach through the plaque up right on Main St.!

As I was leaving Swan River last week, I was able to meet up for coffee with the group of volunteers who monitor in Dauphin. It was lovely to chat and break up the long drive to Winnipeg! Unfortunately, being mid-morning, I didn’t get the time to go chimney-watching though. However, I did get a treasure-trove of MCSI datasheets!

On June 3^rd Jan and Ken Wainwright watched the roosting chimney in Dauphin. They started hearing, and then seeing, swifts flying about at 9:00 PM. The first Chimney Swifts entered the chimney at 10:09 PM. The swifts continued entering the chimney in small groups until 10:18 PM, with a total of 44 individuals in the chimney at the end of the monitoring session.

On June 5^th Marilyn Muller and Pat Start monitored the Watson Arts Centre. They had two swifts down the chimney, with two more swifts seen overhead in the area.

Then on June 6^th both Dauphin groups were out for the last of the National Roost Monitoring Program (NRMP) nights. This time Marilyn and Pat were at the roosting chimney. This time it seems the majority of Chimney Swifts had moved on, with only seven swifts entering by the end of the monitoring session, and a further six swifts seen overhead (likely belonging to other sites in Dauphin).

On the same evening Jan and Ken were watching the chimney at the Hong Kong Cafe. They noted “lots of mosquitos” on their data sheet, which I think most of us can emphasize with! They had two swifts down the chimney from 9:47-9:48 PM, with another four swifts seen overhead.

Frank and Jacquie Machovec were also out on June 6^th watching the two chimneys on the St Joachim Church in a Broquerie (also for NRMP). At the small chimney, they saw one swift miss a chimney approach at 9:24 PM. It did not try again at this chimney. At the larger chimney there was an exit at 9:18 PM, followed by an entry a minute later, and then an exit again at 9:23 PM. At bit complicated overall! As far as observations tell us, there were no swifts in either chimney by the end of the monitoring period… Frank and Jacquie ended the monitoring period with question marks along each of spaces in the summary lines at the bottom of their data sheets, and I don’t blame them!

Last but not least, Providence College in Otterburne was watched on June 6^th for NRMP night by Ron Bazin. There are three chimneys at this site, and each one had quite a bit of activity! The chimney near the bell tower had an early entry and exit (8:39 PM and 8:42 PM respectively). Followed by four entries almost an hour later.

The large chimney on site had almost consistent use from 8:30 PM onwards. There were two earlier entries/ exits by one swift, before three swifts entered at 9:40 PM. There was one exit shortly after at 9:41 PM, before the last activity of four entries from 9:52-10:04 PM. This is a total of six swifts in this chimney.

Last, but not least we have Ron’s observations from the skinny chimney. Here we also had swifts entering and exiting the chimney throughout the observation period, with two exits and seven entries. This chimney ended up with five swifts roosting in it at the end of the night.

Glennis Lewis watched the west chimney on the Orange Block building in Brandon on June 8th. She had two flybys by Chimney Swifts, but no birds enter the chimney.

The same night Gordon Ogilvie watched the chimney on the Red River College building in Portage la Prairie. He saw no signs of Chimney Swifts.

Mike and Michèle Tumber were also out on June 8^th in St Francois Xavier at the Roman Catholic Church. They had the usual two swifts down the chimney, but the swifts went into the chimney at quite different times – the first entry at 9:18 PM and the second entry was at 9:55 PM.

Luc Blanchette monitored at the St Jean Baptiste church on June 8^th for the roosting period. He had a total of four swifts using the chimney. The first three swifts entered the chimney in typical fashion, but it took the last swift almost 15 minutes of constantly circling the church and aborted dives at the chimney before it finally dropped in at 10:13 PM.

New volunteers Karla Guyn and Jim Devries monitored at the Fur Loft building at Lower Fort Garry on June 8^th. This site was last monitored on May 28^th when Gerald Machnee saw a swift enter the chimney, then exit, before no other swifts were observed at the site. Similar to Gerald, Karla and Jim saw one swift in the skies over the site at 8:40 PM, but it did not go down the chimney for the night. After several years of consistent use, it looks like the swifts might be giving this chimney a pass this year.

Tim Poole was able to stop by Souris for a 90-minute monitoring session on June 9^th. He did his best to hop from chimney to chimney in town and try to cover as many sites as possible in that time period. However, the swifts were not so obliging! He had a possible (but not confirmed) exit from the Chocolate Shop chimney, and an exit from the chimney at 25 1^st Avenue West – these are both possible nest sites. No confirmation of swifts using the other 5 possible nesting chimney sites. At the end of the night, he did get quite a show, with 16 Chimney Swifts heading down the chimney on the United Church.

Jacquie and Frank were out at the Carmen Memorial Hall on June 9^th. Last time they checked in at this site (May 24^th) there were three swifts using the chimney. This time there was a single entry at 9:36 PM, but three more swifts were seen overhead.

Lots of swift action was also taking place inside Winnipeg as well.

First, we will start with a couple earlier reports. Blair Reid observed 188 St Mary’s Rd for the roosting hour on June 2^nd (the cold night). I am sure it is of no surprise to those who read the blog last week, that Blair saw no signs of swifts!

Breanne Reinfort was busy helping to monitor the Chimney Swifts at 424 River Avenue for the first week of monitoring, but in weeks two and three she headed out to the Maryland Foodfare to monitor the chimney there. As of June 1^st, it looks like the swifts might be setting up for a nesting attempt based on their behavior. She had two swifts at the site, but additional entries and exits prior to the swifts going down the chimney for the night. There were two entries at 8:36 PM, and then exits at 8:51 PM and 8:52 PM. The swifts entered for the night at 9:38 PM. There were four other swifts seen in the air.

When Breanne monitored the following week she once again had two swifts using the chimney, but the only entries were when the swifts went down the chimney for the evening at 9:40 PM. Just to add in a little (not needed) spice into Breanne (and the swift’s) evening, a Merlin came and hung around the site! Luckily it moved on about 10 minutes later with no casualties.

Blair Ried watched 340 Provancher on June 5^th, and saw no activity at the site. He did see one swift about two blocks away that same afternoon. So close, but no cigar (for the “flying cigars”) in the area.

To help puzzle together our knowledge of Wolseley-area Chimney Swifts, Nicole and Cain Firlotte watched the Fleetwood Apartment chimney on June 6^th. They had two entries at 9:29 pm.

Garry Budyk monitored the Watt St chimney on June 6^th as well, and also had a pair using the chimney. He had one entry at 9:14 PM by a swift who was “chattering” as it headed down the chimney, and then a silent entry at 9:24 PM.

Jon Benson monitored 634 Broadway on June 7^th. Similar to Breanne’s site, Jon saw some extra entries and exits that may be indicative of nesting behaviour starting at this site – hard to confirm though as it also may have just been the swifts getting settled for the night. There were entries at 9:17 PM and 9:32 PM, with both swifts exiting the chimney at 9:49 PM. After a couple of minutes the two swifts were back down the chimney at 9:53 PM and 9:55 PM respectively.

Jeope Wolfe was also back in Wolseley at the Lothian Block Apartments on June 8^th. Jeope noted “Very few sightings in the air tonight, a few distance audibles outside of visual range. At 9:08 PM and 9:15 PM three swifts were spotted, quite high… at 9:35 PM two swifts descended to the chimney and banked off at the last moment, then returned for entry at 9:37 PM”.

We had a great observation submitted by Gwen Armbuster, a new volunteer, on June 6^th. She reported “Three Chimney Swifts were observed for over an hour flying very high covering quite a large area. They were chattering all of the time. I was sitting on a rooftop patio and had prime opportunity to observed. Around 9:30 they all went into the chimney at 139 Market Ave. I also observed this on June 3^rd and June 4^th.” Sounds like Gwen has the ideal swift viewing location! This is a site that we had not monitored yet this year, so this report to great to hear.

Peter Douglas watched the St Anne’s Church chimney in St James on June 1^st and June 8^th and saw no sights or sounds of Chimney Swifts.

Unknown to us, and to each other (I assume) on June 8^th at 690 St Joseph Street both Jim Chliboyko and Blair Ried were watching for swifts. It gave us an excellent idea of their accuracy! Jim noted one swift enter the chimney at 9:26 PM, and Blair pegged the same swift heading down at 9:27 PM from his vantage point.

The saga continues for Blaire Barta at the Behavioral Health Foundation. You may recall from past blogs that Blaire has been seeing swifts on a regular basis during the day, but then they clear out at night. Well, it seems that they swifts have heard Blaire’s confusion and finally on June 8^th they decided to start using the chimney! She had a total of five swifts overhead early in the monitoring period. At 9:38 PM she had one entry and just a minute later two more swifts entered the chimney. After that all was quiet and the remaining two swifts were not seen again. It is still anyone’s guess if the swifts are here to stay for the summer now, but at least Blaire finally saw them use the chimney!

Ron was back in Winnipeg for June 8^th to monitor the Archibald Storage building’s chimney. He had three swifts enter the chimney starting at 9:38 PM and ending at 10:00 PM. Prior to the swifts heading down the chimney, he did not see them in the air above for most of the monitoring period, and no additional swifts were observed.

Gary Franzmann and Marj Kendall monitored for Chimney Swifts on June 8^th at 1295 and 1181 Pembina Highway. They mentioned that it was a “beautiful evening” but unfortunately there were no swifts in sight.

Marilyn Bowles and Pam Lucenkiw monitored the chimney at the St Mary’s Road United Church. They did not see any birds that were 100% identified as Chimney Swifts (there were three birds high in the air, that looked more swallow-like). However, a neighbour to the church told them that they had seen two Chimney Swifts drop into the chimney several days later – so Marilyn and Pam are going to keep watching!

On June 9^th Randy Mooi was watching the chimney at the Montessori School in South Point Douglas from 7:50-8:40 AM. He mentions “I saw no entries, but did have swifts come over the building, usually in pairs but occasionally as many as five birds about every five minutes”.

Tim Poole did some drive-by birding at the Moorgate Apartment on June 9th. He passed by at 12:45 pm on June 9^th and saw one swift exit the chimney. This site was watched just a couple of days earlier (June 6^th) during the last NRMP night by Linda Curtis, who saw three swifts go down the chimney for the night. It appears that this chimney is possibly both a roosting and a nesting site.

We’ve also got some updates from both Wildlife Branch staff and volunteers from the Old Grace Housing Co-op on the monitoring sessions that have been going on there. Monitoring took place on May 15^th, May 20^th, May 22^nd, May 26^th, May 28^th, May 29^th, May 31^st, June 1st, June 2^nd, June 3^rd and June 9^th. Despite starting to hear swifts on May 22^nd, there have been no entries into their artificial chimney. The Fleetwood Apartment and Lothian Block Apartment are quite close to this site, so hopefully if these swifts can nest successfully this year, perhaps next year the fledged young would choose the Old Grace. A big thanks to Tim Poole, Aynsley Woods and Aditya Ghandi from the province and Doug Smith, Sandra Hardy, Francene Adelmann, Debbie Lake, Bonnie Thiessen and Glenn Morison from the Old Grace Coop!

That’s it for this monitoring round-up! See you next week with more update.

• Amanda Shave

Fasten your seatbelts, we’ve got a big blog this week! Great to hear from so many of our volunteers out watching the Chimney Swifts. This is not even all of the monitoring records – I’ve saved some for next week as well.

First, we will have a few updates from our larger roost sites (the National Roost Monitoring Program – NRMP sites) in Winnipeg:

Linda Curtis watched the Moorgate Apartments, one of our roosting sites for NRMP nights on May 25^th and 29^th (NRMP night #1 and #2 respectively).  She had three swifts down the chimney at the end of the night on May 25th, and another 2-3 swifts seen in the air overhead. If you remember from last week, I was monitoring just a block over from Linda and I had one entry but 3 more swifts in the air – I think I was seeing at least some of her swifts! Linda mentioned that she though some might have headed to the chimney on the Thunderbird Apartments due to their trajectory in the air. On May 29^th she arrived later on-site but only saw one swift flying on the opposite side of Portage Avenue, with no swifts spotted entering the chimney she was watching. It is possible that the swifts may have headed down the chimney earlier as during the previous session the swifts were down the chimney almost right at sunset.

The River Manor Apartments (424 River Ave) was our big roost site last year and it has continued on this year as well. On May 25^th (NRMP night #1) we had Barbara Barnett and Breanne Reinfort monitoring the “visible” chimney on the building and Wajed Shah monitoring the “invisible” chimney (named as it is hard to see from the ground). With their excellent counting skills and teamwork Barbara and Breanne tallied a total of 132 swifts going down the chimney in a 15-minute period. Interestingly up until 9:30 pm Breanne and Barbara didn’t actually see many swifts in the air (2-10 swifts seen), instead they mentioned that the swifts seem to arrive at the site in “waves”, with each new wave happening after the previous wave had gone down the chimney. Wajed had hunted down the best viewing spot for the “invisible” chimney – he had no swifts entering that chimney (which is handy as it is harder to watch), but did still get to see the whole spectacle!

On May 29^th Barbara, Breanne and Wajed were all back at the River Manor Apartments for NRMP night #2. This site continued to be a spectacle! Despite a flat tire on the way to monitoring, Wajed made it in time, and luckily he did! Wajed was able to capture the entries of the swifts on two pieces of video, which allowed the trio to go through the video frame by frame and count the swifts. Within just 40 seconds of video 151-176 Chimney Swifts were counted going down the chimney!! The final number of swifts down the chimney is still being compiled but estimates are likely between 172-194 swifts!!! Take a look at Wajed’s video on YouTube.

Meanwhile, what a difference the weather made at the River Manor Apartments for NRMP night #3 on June 2^nd! Our intrepid trio was back at the roost site, but only counted the entry of two swifts. It is not likely that all those swifts moved on to other sites within the three-day period. Much more likely is that the cold (9^oC), cloudy and windy weather meant that the swifts headed down the chimney before the monitoring period had started.

On May 25^th David Wiebe watched the Ecole Assiniboine School for NRMP night #1. This site was our large roost site in Winnipeg prior to last year (when it held few to no swifts). This year we had a roost back, albeit in smaller numbers. David counted 22 swifts in the air, with 21 swifts heading down the chimney for the night.

David was back for NRMP night #2 on May 29^th from 9:00-10:00 PM. When he arrived, there were five swifts flying around. Between 9:38 PM and 9:56 PM 16 swifts entered the chimney and two swifts exited. As David put it “Maybe they didn’t like the company”! So there were only 14 swifts in the chimney at the end of the monitoring period.

Next on to the monitoring of our nesting sites in Winnipeg:

Pam Lucenkiw and Marilyn Bowles monitored at St Mary’s Road United Church in St Vital on May 25^th. They unfortunately did not see or hear any swifts that evening. They went back for June 1^st, but still had no confirmed Chimney Swifts. They did note that there were certainly more flying insects around this week!

Rob Parsons monitored at St Avila School on May 25^th and he ended up with zero swifts as well.

722 Watt St saw the return of at least one swift, and our long-term monitor Garry Budyk. Garry only saw one swift go down the chimney on May 26th. The swift went down relatively early in the evening (9:03 PM, sunset 9:21 PM). However, Garry recorded some light precipitation and a few lightening flashes closer to sunset. It is possible a second swift may have been already down the chimney prior to Garry’s arrival, as this is usually a nesting site with two swifts (from past years).

Donna Milovitch continued to faithfully monitor her chimneys despite still hitting zeros in St James at the Carillon Apartments, Marner Apartments and the King’s Theatre building on the evening of May 27^th.

David Wiebe watched a few of the St James neighbourhood-area sites on May 29^th, prior to his watch at the Ecole Assiniboine School. From 8:00-9:00 PM he watched the old King’s Theatre building, the Carillon Apartments and the Marner Apartments. At 8:41 PM he saw his first swift, but similar to Donna’s experience in the area, David noted that the swift did not approach any of the chimneys.

 Jon Benson watched the apartments at 634 Broadway. In the previous week he had seen Chimney Swifts using this site, but saw no signs of swifts during his May 31^st monitoring session. It was very windy though, so not ideal Chimney Swift monitoring conditions.

Jon had also sent me an interesting report on May 29^th. While working at an event at the Turtle Island Community Centre Jon was regularly seeing/ hearing Chimney Swifts overhead, and at one point saw up to 10 swifts. We have three sites near the Community Centre without monitors, so if any one would like to check them out, that would be fantastic!

Blaire Barta’s mystery at the Behavioral Health Foundation’s chimney continued on June 1st. Blaire sees the swifts fly around in the afternoon and early evening as she goes about her day, but the swifts don’t end up heading down the chimney she is watching.

Ron Bazin watched the Marion Hotel chimney on June 1^st. He spotted a total of three swifts flying overhead for the evening, but had only one swift using the chimney. He had an entry at 8:38 PM, followed by a quick exit seven minutes later. The swift entered for the night 10 minutes after sunset. Ron also recorded two Common Nighthawk that he saw overhead at 8:50 PM. Like the Chimney Swift, Common Nighthawks are an aerial insectivore (bird who eats insects while in flight), so it is not too surprising that they would be feeding in the same area.

Jeope Wolfe continued monitoring at the Lothian Apartments in the Wolseley neighbourhood in Winnipeg on June 1^st in the evening. He noted “Fewer sightings earlier on of swifts in the air, but more flybys and chattering closer to sunset…Two entered the chimney at 9:41 while the others continued to fly about until disappearing shortly after (last sighting at 9:44). A couple of nighthawks were also spotted this evening.”

Blair Reid watched the apartments at 261 Youville St during the roosting hour on June 1st. There were two swifts flying about, but no entries into the chimney.

Rudolf Koes was back in the North Kildonan neighbourhood on June 1^st. First, he made a trip over to Chief Peguis Middle School from 8:30-8:43 PM. Here he saw three swifts overhead. This side-trip was made due to “bonus” swifts that Rudolf had seen last week. This was the closest, most likely site I could give him from our database that has had swifts in the past. However, we would still need to confirm with monitoring during the roosting period if these three swifts do indeed belong to this chimney. After that Rudolf headed to his normal monitoring sites. He watched the apartment at 1010 Brazier and the Curtis Hotel for the roosting period. Here he saw a maximum of nine Chimney Swifts in the air. He had one swift go down the chimney on the apartments at 9:40 PM and two swifts go down the hotel chimney at 9:38 PM. The remaining birds left the area.

Now off to the areas outside of Winnipeg with our trusty Chimney Swift monitors. First monitoring at our larger roost sites (the National Roost Monitoring Program – NRMP sites):

On May 29^th (NRMP night #2) Gerald monitored at the St Merchants Hotel in Selkirk. He had one swift overhead, but no swifts entering the chimney.

For NRMP night #2 Frank and Jacquie Machovec headed to the St Joachim Church in La Broquerie. They had two swifts go down the small chimney and two swifts go down the larger chimney. However, like last week there were six swifts in the air, but only four down the chimneys at the end of the night. The mystery is ongoing!

Frank and Jaquie were back at the St Joachim Church on June 2nd (for NRMP night #3). This was the night of the terribly cold temperatures. Almost no one who was out monitoring saw any swifts! This certainly held true for Frank and Jacquie. Despite knowing there was an extremely high likelihood of swifts at the site, they saw not a sign of a swift. With a temperature of 8^oC and cloudy at the start of monitoring, it is no wonder there were no swifts about. Based on our past experience, the Chimney Swifts probably headed down their respective chimneys earlier in the afternoon or evening.

Ron Bazin headed out to Otterburne for us on May 25^th (NRMP night #1) to watch the two chimneys at Providence College. Six swifts were counted overhead, but based on chimney entries – there were at least 12 swifts on site. The chimney near the bell tower had two swifts that went down the chimney “swiftly” one after another right at sunset. The large chimney had six swifts enter across quite a time range starting at 8:33 PM and ending at 9:56 PM. The swifts in the skinny chimney were having a real party going into and out of the chimney almost constantly from 9:22 PM to 9:58 PM. Ron counted 14 exits and 10 entries over that period. At the end of all that action he had a total of four swifts in the skinny chimney.

On May 29^th Ron was back at Providence College for the 2^nd NRMP night. He had seven swifts seen in the air across all three chimneys. The chimney near the bell tower had four swifts enter for the evening, one just after sunset (9:23 PM) and the other three swifts approximately 10 minutes later. The large chimney also had two individuals enter the chimney around 10 minutes after sunset. The party from the previous monitoring session on May 25^th at the skinny chimney was over on May 29^th – only one swift entered the chimney (at 9:32 PM).

Ron returned to Providence College for the 3^rd of the NRMP monitoring nights on June 2^nd. Ron didn’t see any swift action at the large chimney or the chimney near the bell tower. However, Ron’s night was not a total bird-bust though, as he had a Chimney Swift exit out of the skinny chimney at 8:39 PM, before it headed back down almost right away at 8:40 PM. The appearance of the swifts out of the chimney confirmed that swifts were down the chimney at this site (due to the poor weather) before Ron even arrived to monitor. Ron got a bit more excitement later on that evening when he heard two Common Nighthawks overhead just before and after sunset.

The monitors in Dauphin had a rollercoaster ride of a night on the NRMP #2 evening (May 29^th). I cannot explain it better than Ken Wainwright himself, so I will put his entry to me here “Decisions, what to do, it’s raining like “cats and dogs”, but it’s not roosting hour yet, oh well, I’ll give it a try, the truck needs the dust washed off it anyway!

I pull into the parking lot, the rain has let off, now to open and adjusting the window height when something moves?? What is a self-respecting jack rabbit doing hoping around in the rain and wet ground when it should be hiding in the lee of the wind snuggled into some dry leaves or grasses?

I raise the window a little higher, my clipboard is getting rain on it, something moves? Hurray, there were 4 swifts that came out of the fog and drizzle to buzz the truck! Oh wow, now there is a writhing ball, rolling east, then west and disappearing behind the maple tree only to roll back out again on the other side, what to do? I think back to my visit to the Narcisse Snake Dens with masses of snakes rolling in the grasses but not today, these are Chimney Swifts! The clouds are so low and the drizzle just heavy enough that there is nothing visible and then there’s 30 swifts flying around and then they’re gone again! Sunset comes, not that anything seemed to change that I could see but my watch says it’s time and here they come, 4 minutes later 31 swifts have gone down our roost chimney for the night.

I head over to our newest nesting chimney where I’m met by a smiling face from another volunteer who just happened to glance through the drizzle on her window to see 2 swifts go down and out of the weather for the night, it’s starting!”

When the Dauphin folks went to watch the big roost site the next night (June 2nd, the 3^rd NRMP night), it was unfortunately the day with the terrible weather across Manitoba. Ken sums up the night “Well, the count at the Dauphin roost tonight was ZERO!! I figure it must have been too cold, right now +8oC, maybe they were out earlier but there was cloud and drizzle and now its cleared right off with FROST warnings!! Is it June already?”

As Jan Wainwright’s keen eyes counted approximately 70 swifts enter the roost site on June 1^st (see the entry on the nesting chimney in the next section), but had no swifts at the roost site on June 2^nd, the Dauphin folks headed back to the roosting chimney on June 3^rd. Ken Wainwright notes “For along time we didn’t see anything but it was clear, sunny and +14^oC so we still had hope. We finally heard them before seeing them but then they were flying around in 2’s and 3’s. Sunset was listed at 9:48 PM still without any interest in the chimney but there seemed to be more flying around. Finally, at 10:09 the first three went down and then there were birds all around and 24 went down followed by a few more each minute till 10:18 for a total count in the chimney being 44”.

And last, but certainly not least, we fly in to visit our volunteers that monitor nesting chimneys outside of Winnipeg:

Bonnie Chartier and Tim Verbiswski watched the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound in Lockport on May 25^th. They saw both chimneys in use by the swifts, with the south chimney hosting one swift that entered at 9:34 PM and the north chimney hosting two swifts that entered at the same time as the swift in the south chimney!

June 1^st had Donna Milovitch back in Lac du Bonnet at Casey’s Inn. Unfortunately, still no swifts around!

With the evening of Saturday, May 28^th being so nice, I decided to head out to watch the two chimneys on the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound as well. There were five swifts in the air, although I mostly saw 3-4 circling. There were “V” courtship displays a couple of times, which was promising. A third swift would follow closely when this happened and get chased off by the other two. First, I had two swifts down the south chimney and three down the north chimney just after sunset. There was a bit of a commotion in the north chimney a couple of minutes later and all three swifts left at once and proceeded to fly around for another 15 minutes or so, until two of the three went back down the north chimney and the other swift went down the south chimney instead. Ended with two down the north chimney and three down the south chimney. Everyone settled back in the chimneys by 9:45 PM. My speculation on the drama is that perhaps the “third wheel” swift was not welcome in the north chimney and got kicked out.

Gerald Machnee watched the chimney at the Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site’s Fur Loft building on May 28^th for the roosting period. He had one entry at 9:11 PM, followed by an exit a couple minutes later at 9:15 PM before activity stopped for the evening. So no swifts were actually seen spending the night in the chimney. Hopefully the one checking it out will decide it is a good place to spend the night (or nest) in the future!

Gerald was also back with the rest of the Selkirk Birders crew in Selkirk! Starting on May 11^th Gerald watched the stack replacement tower at Selkirk Mental Health Centre (SMHC). He saw one swift circle overhead before it “vanished”.

A week later Gerald went to check out the SMHC again, but this time the chimney on the old Infirmary building. He also saw some Chimney Swift action here with one or two swifts either diving into or past the chimney at 9:00 PM. He thought it looked more like they dove past the chimney but it was hard to tell. The usual monitoring vantage point was blocked as the building and parking lot were being used to film a movie (inside the building)! I think that is a first for issues encountered by MCSI monitors!

With the filming wrapped up Robert Hempler was able to move back into the prime Chimney Swift monitoring location when he watched the old infirmary chimney on May 25^th. He recorded seven swifts flying overhead in the earlier part of the evening, eventually noting two swifts down the chimney he was watching about 20 minutes after sunset.

Also on May 25^th Nia Massey and Linda Adie watched the stack replacement tower and the yellow brick chimney. Like Robert, they counted up to seven swifts in the air, even after sunset. They had two entries, followed by one exit in the yellow brick chimney (so ending up with one swift in the chimney). There was one swift seen using the stack replacement tower.

Now moving to May 29^th at the SMHC the monitors were out in full force once again. Nia and Linda watched the yellow brick chimney and the stack replacement tower. They had one swift enter the stack replacement tower at 9:00 PM, one enter at 9:10 PM, and two swifts enter the tower at 9:42 PM. At the yellow brick chimney, they had only one swift enter at 9:03 PM. Robert was also onsite, but watching the old infirmary chimney. He had two swifts exit at 9:00 PM, before two swifts came back to enter the chimney for the evening at 9:30 PM.

On June 2^nd, myself and two provincial STEP students, Aynsley Woods and Aditya Ghandi all headed out to SMHC to watch the various Chimney Swift Towers. Like most others who watched on this night though, we ended up seeing zero swifts in the air.

One June 1^st at the St Francois Xavier Roman Catholic Church Mike and Michèle Tumber had a bit of action as well. There were two swifts in the air shortly after they arrived on site, and had one aborted entry attempt. After a brief intermission appearance by two Common Nighthawks, the swifts went down the chimney at 9:16 PM and 9:22 PM. All was quiet after that.

The monitors in Dauphin have both a roosting chimney that gets watched on NRMP nights (due to the larger number of swifts) as well as several nesting chimneys. On June 1^st Jan and Ken Wainwright watched the Old Scott’s Hardware building and Marilyn Muller and Pat Start watched the Watson Arts Centre. Both were occupied! This makes all four Dauphin chimneys occupied this year. It will certainly keep the Dauphin folks busy! Marilyn and Pat had one swift enter the chimney for the evening at 9:17 PM. Ken and Jan had three swifts enter their chimney for the evening, one individual at 8:51 PM and two individuals at 9:30 PM. While watching the Old Scott’s Hardware building, Jan Wainwright used her keen eyesight to look beyond the nesting chimney to the roost chimney, where she estimated 70 swifts heading down there that night!

Next, we’ve got a few sightings from St Jean Baptiste. Long time volunteer Luc Blanchette has been joined this year by Nelson Chubby, which is great as both known Chimney Swifts sites can be covered! When Nelson watched the Ecole Regional St Jean-Baptiste on May 25^th there were no swifts to be seen.

The next person out was Luc on May 31^st at the St Jean Baptiste Church. This time swifts were spotted with two heading down the chimney (one at 8:59 PM and one oat 9:01 PM). However, after those swifts went down the chimney, there were still three in the air that never went down the chimney Luc was watching…perhaps the three extra swifts had arrived sometime after May 25^th and were using the chimney at Nelson’s site?

We received an answer to that question on June 1^st, when both Nelson and Luc were monitoring their sites on the same night! Luc recorded a total of four swifts flying around and calling (including harassing a Merlin). At 9:25 PM two swifts went down his chimney, while two more continued to fly around and call. While over at Nelson’s site things were much quieter, until two swifts headed down his chimney! So all accounted for!

Gordon Ogilvie has also done some monitoring in Portage la Prairie at the Rufus Prince building. On May 25^th he noted two swifts entering the south chimney 20-30 minutes after sunset. He was back on June 2^nd (the cold night) but recorded no swifts (as we’ve come to expect now!).

In Brandon we had our whole complement of volunteers out on June 1^st to monitor. Louanne Reid and Gillian Richards watched the north chimney on the Orange Block building and had one “quiet, sudden entry” at 9:38 PM. Other bird sightings included five Common Nighthawks, two Common Grackles, two Rock Pigeons, and various House Sparrows. The other chimney on the Orange Block had Glennis Lewis and Hannah Shields as monitors. They had only one swift (the same bird that headed down the north chimney) but also recorded other birds on their side of the building including Common Nighthawks, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Common Grackles, Rock Pigeons, House Sparrows and American Crows.

David Raitt was able to check out one of our priority chimneys in The Pas at the VIA Rail station on May 28^th from 9:45 – 11:00 PM. There were no signs of Chimney Swifts there, unfortunately.

— Amanda Shave

WEATHER INFLUENCES WHETHER OR NOT YOU SEE SWIFTS

This blog leapfrogs Amanda’s summaries of your MCSI Wednesday Swift Watch and National Roost Monitoring Program reports. We share Amanda’s precious time with the Important Bird Area program (IBA; https://importantbirdareasmb.ca/). While Amanda was busy leading the Whitewater Lake IBA Bird Blitz then heading up to Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation, I drafted some thoughts about how weather might have influenced your chimney side experiences of late.

Canada’s senior meteorologist, Dave Phillips, spoke well to the weather challenges so far this year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-summer-weather-long-range-forecast-dave-phillips-1.6473572 Hopefully, we are at the inflection point for transitioning out of the prolonged, cling-on winter (like toilet paper sticking to your foot – white, wet, and hard to shake off) which was followed by a wacky, watery “spring”. Rain and more rain and cold temperatures and high winds have plagued everyone in this province. Locals in my area have dubbed the current Red River event as the Forever Flood – water is still covering low-lying roads, driveways, and fields. Farmers are behind seeding. Fruit trees are late blooming (noted locally and by Ken W. in Dauphin). Has anybody seen bees? They are not out and about here.

Weather does influence whether or not you see swifts during your monitoring sessions. Let’s take a look at recent weather issues and how our Chimney Swifts seem to have responded to them…

Last week another Colorado Low hit, drenching the province with inches more rain. The post-rain period was markedly cold (< 12 C) and sustained high winds (>60 kph) prevailed. That was not ideal weather for Chimney Swifts to gather airborne insects. Chimney Swifts are obligate aerial insectivores. If there are no bugs in the air column, swifts do not eat. Other insectivores, such as Purple Martins, can pick up food on the ground so that is their Plan B option.

Fortunately, Chimney Swifts have an energy saving option to bridge poor weather conditions that impairs feeding. Their Plan B option is to take refuge inside their chimneys (roost or nest sites) and enter a state of torpor. With a reduced metabolic rate, precious calories are conserved. After coming out of torpor, one behaviour will dominate – feeding to restore body condition will be of highest importance. For breeding swifts, at this time of the year, the hierarchy of behaviour could translate into deferred nest building.

Some examples of how Chimney Swifts responded to the recent weather challenges were noted by multiple observers. In Dauphin and at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre, on the chilly, windy evening of Thursday, June 2^nd, monitors were on-site ~8 PM and no swifts were seen at all that evening! However, roosting swifts were seen in Dauphin Wednesday night (~70) and Friday night (~44). It is likely that the birds went into their chimneys early to save energy on Thursday.

In St Adolphe, no swifts were seen using nest sites on Friday, June 3^rd. It was a cold (12 C), long-john & wool sock viewing day. All 5 nest sites were monitored and no swifts were seen approaching chimney rims. All efforts were directed to feeding. The maximum group size seen in the air was 6 swifts, up from the 4 birds noted on Wednesday, June 1^st.

Saturday, June 4^th was a warmer, sunnier day in St Adolphe. A group of 6 swifts was seen once. Between ~10 AM and 12:45 PM, no swifts used the Church, Main St. or Brodeur Bros./Daycare chimneys. Ugh. The final monitoring session at Club Amical ended up much better than expected. A pair of swifts were in and out of both the SE and NE Club Amical chimneys. Here is what the typical nest building activity looked like:

Start observations at 12:55; gentle breeze; 0-24% cloud cover; no precipitation; >15 C.

1:01:20 – 2 CHSW strafe NE rim; approach together fast and low from E; then see N=3 flying low through the gap between chimneys; birds dip at the SE rim, circle around the building then move to the NW feeding.

1:24:37: 1 from N fast, low, stalls at NE rim and banks off to Fire Hall (to E) where N=1 flying; then see N=1 low at Beer Vendor = S end of Club A.

1:27:08 – 1 entry to SE chimney; bird was followed closely by N=1 that flies by due NW + N=1 other trailing behind pair.

1:28:07 – N=3 from Fire Hall to over Club to W; low, slow, quiet.

1:31:26 – 2 entries to NE chimney; both low from W; went over Club, reoriented into NW wind & dropped in slowly one after the other.

1:34:07 – N=2 to SW; 3 inside chimneys + 2 in air = max. 5 accounted for.

1:34:42 – 1 exit SE; up and drop to NW, slow, quiet, low, alone. Duration-in interval (entry to exit): ~8 min.

1:43:49 – 1 exit NE; to N, quiet, low. Duration-in interval: ~13 min.

1:43:59 – 1 exit NE; to N, quiet, low. Duration-in interval: ~13 min.

1:52:51 – 1 entry SE; meteoric, low, from SE, quiet, with N=1 that flies by to NW. Between-visit interval (exit to entry): ~18 min.

1:53:37 – 1 entry SE; low from SE; drop, quiet, alone.

1:54:11 – 2 exits SE; 1 bird to S and 1 bird to N; low, quiet. Duration-in interval: ~ 1 min.

End observations at 1:55 PM (60 minutes).

SE Club Amical chimney: 3 entries, 3 exits; pair onsite.

NE Club Amical chimney: 2 entries, 2 exits; pair onsite.

June 3-4 are important dates as no successful breeding attempt in St Adolphe has occurred when nest building started after that. With the clock ticking and questions to answer, it was back to check out the inactive sites once more…

On Sunday, June 5, no entry/exit events were seen at the Church during an early afternoon monitoring session. The wind was blowing cold again as the daytime high of 16 C was approached. During a short break, I talked with the homeowner of the Main St nest site. They saw a single bird enter the chimney before the last Colorado Low set in and many birds were seen in the area around their home. Then it was back to another round of monitoring at Brodeur Bros./Daycare where an exit was seen. A pair may be onsite but only one bird was detected during the monitoring session.

There are many perplexing issues this spring. Foremost, there has been no daytime activity observed at the Church. Since 2007, it has been the most frequently occupied site ~ usually claimed first by arriving swifts ~ and the one with the highest success rate in town. A roosting hour session would determine whether the site is claimed. If so, why is the breeding pair not ready to nest build yet? Is the local food supply very poor? Are there really only six swifts seen in town, distributed as pairs in the Club Amical chimneys and singles in Brodeur Bros./Daycare and Main St? What has happened to the overwintering and migrating Chimney Swifts that has resulted in fewer birds arriving in St Adolphe so far? Will more Chimney Swifts arrive soon? So many questions. So much monitoring to do.

Collecting “comparable” monitoring data is useful. I try to watch at least 2 different sites each time I go to St Adolphe to evaluate between-site progress relative to environmental conditions. To compare post-flood seasons, I looked back through my 2011 notes. That year, the Red River spring flood was followed by drought and extremely low mosquito trap counts. The Chimney Swifts in St Adolphe had the poorest productivity in 15 years of data collection (2007-2022 inclusive), with fledging occurring at only the NE Club Amical chimney. So, 2011 had a wild pendulum swing of weather conditions.

What will follow this year? Time will tell. For now, we will receive what Dave Phillips describes as a “meteorological gift” = 1 week of sun and no rain! It is hard to predict how the Chimney Swifts will respond. Let’s hope the snake ‘n’ ladder weather game plays out with a step onto the big ladder leading to the game winning square – successful breeding!

We look forward to receiving you reports, so keep them flying in!

— Barb

Our first week of monitoring is in the bag! Based off of the reports I have received so far, it seems to me that not all of our Chimney Swifts have arrived back in Manitoba yet compared to numbers from past years. Perhaps they were/are delayed by the cool and wet weather that has dominated so far this spring.

That being said we did have swifts at a number of sites in Winnipeg and across Manitoba, and great weather for the first of our official monitoring nights. Read on below for details!

Frank and Jacquie Machovec visited Carmen on May 24^th to watch the chimney on Carman Memorial Hall. Most importantly they reported that Carman now has a Tim Hortons to grab coffee from before swift monitoring! Second most importantly they had a trio of birds periodically circling overhead before two birds went down the chimney from a shallow angle about 20 minutes after sunset (just kidding Frank and Jacquie were very happy to see swifts in Carmen!). They are fairly certain the third bird entered as well, but they did not have a great view of the birds entering from their location – so hard to get the ideal view! Frank also spotted a group of five swifts to the southeast about an hour before sunset. We had “bonus” swifts in Carmen last year too, where we were unsure where they were roosting, so I am unsurprised that this mystery continues. On the same day I also had a report from Rhonda Smith in Carman, who was able to confirm that she also saw three swifts in the same vicinity as Frank and Jacquie.

Luc Blanchette was also out monitoring on May 24^th but at the Church in St Jean Baptiste. He had up to six swifts  overhead, and two swifts down the chimney both entering shortly after one another around sunset. We will have to keep our eyes and ears open to determine where the “bonus” swifts in St Jean Baptiste are headed as well! Luc was also keeping his eyes and ears attuned to migrating Common Nighthawks, another aerial insectivore (like the Chimney Swift). He observed 87 individuals passing him by on the 24^th, impressive!

On May 25^th Frank and Jacquie were out monitoring again, but this time without a local Timmies, at St Joachim Church in La Broquerie. Here they watched two chimneys. The small chimney on the church had a swift enter at 9:19 pm, before exiting at 9:27 pm and then heading in for the night at 9:32 pm. The larger chimney on the church had two swifts enter at 9:27 pm and then one more swift enter at 9:39 pm. However, Frank and Jacquie saw six swifts in total overhead, meaning that they could only account for four of the six swifts in the area in the two chimneys. Did the last two swifts enter after it was too dark to see properly? Or is there another site in the area? MCSI doesn’t know of another site in La Broquerie currently.

In Brandon Glennis Lewis monitored for Chimney Swifts at the west chimney on the Orange Block building on May 25^th. She had no swifts seen or heard overhead or in the chimney – so likely no swifts in the north chimney on the building either. Crossing our fingers that migrating swifts just haven’t made it to Brandon yet this year – since both the Orange Block chimneys were very active last season!

In St Francois Xavier Michael and Michèle Tumber were back at their post at the Church in 2022 again. They had an interested evening with four swifts in the air, but only two down their chimney, so “bonus” swifts here too (bonus swifts for everyone this year!). Michèle mentioned that they know of one other chimney in town, so they are going to keep their eyes peeled for entries there.

The flood water had gone down enough for Barb and Rob Stewart to escape Isle Stewart during the day on May 25^th and head into St Adolphe. Barb noted four swifts over St Adolphe, which is one more than I saw on May 12th. Barb noted that likely not all pairs have arrived back yet. There were no signs of daytime entries that would signal nesting building had started in any of the known sites in town.

The Dauphin crew were also out monitoring on May 25^th. Ken Wainwright noted “Well, it got really overcast in Dauphin and the sky was almost black which made observations really hard but we managed to count 7 swifts go down the roost chimney. There was one bird that went in and out just at sunset until they decided to go down. There seemed to be at least 1 pair always flying together.” That one Chimney Swift just didn’t want you guys to get too bored watching the chimney! Similar to Luc’s sightings while monitoring in St Jean Baptiste, Common Nighthawks were also seen overhead in Dauphin.

Donna Milovitch is monitoring for us in both Winnipeg and Lac Du Bonnet, but we will start off with her adventures outside the city first. On May 26^th Donna monitored Casey’s Inn and Gran’s Bakery buildings in Lac du Bonnet. This is the first time both buildings have been watched in several years. Unfortunately, no swifts showed up in daytime monitoring periods yet, but we will keep watch to see if anyone arrives.

Moving to Winnipeg now, Jon Benson monitored the Waldorf Apartments chimney at 634 Broadway. Jon had a great first night of monitoring with up to six swifts in the air, and two entries into the chimney seven minutes after sunset.

On May 25^th Rudolf Koes monitored for Chimney Swifts at two sites near the Northdale Mall. At the Curtis Hotel chimney, he observed two swifts enter the chimney at 9:15 pm and just two minutes later two swifts went down the chimney at 1010 Brazier St. Earlier in the night Rudolf had seen eight swifts flying overhead, so he continued to watch past the two sets of entries. Good thing he did, as seven more swifts flew overhead at 9:28 pm heading east. The only site we know of east of Rudolf’s sites is Chief Peguis School – so if anyone wants to go check it out, you may find a roost of seven birds! If not, we have some unknown sites in the area.

Next, we move back to Donna’s daytime monitoring in Winnipeg. On May 18^th she observed the Carillon Apartments and the Marner Apartments in the St James neighbourhood. No swifts were seen or heard. Unfortunately, the no-swifts streak continued with her monitoring efforts on May 25^th with no swifts seen or heard at the Carillion Apartments, Marner Apartments, King’s Theatre/ Latinos Market and the Viscount Apartments. In an “average” year the Chimney Swifts have the possibility of nest building in this time period, so daytime activity is possible, but perhaps not yet with our weather this spring. It will be interesting at the end of this year to look back at the timings of each stage of the nesting process that we can glean from everyone’s monitoring efforts. Will they be comparable to the “average”? Or will nesting stages be pushed back later into the year?

Ariel Desrochers (our summer assistant, back for another round with us in 2022) watched the Roxy Lanes chimneys on the evening of May 25^th. No activity was seen in the white brick chimney on the side of the building, but three swifts entered the red brick chimney. Each swift entered the chimney almost 10 minutes apart with the first entry at 9:05 pm and the last entry at 9:27 pm, just after sunset.

Peter Douglas monitored at the St Anne’s RC Church on May 25^th. He had a single Chimney Swift fly over at 8:31 pm, but no sightings after that.

Blair Reid was also out on our first monitoring night. He was at 690 St Joseph St and had three swifts overhead, but only one entry into the chimney which occurred eight minutes after sunset.

I was watching the eastern-most chimney at the Silver Heights Apartments in St James on May 25^th. I had four swifts that were constantly swooping in and out of view from 8:12 pm to 9:10 pm. I thought they might all end up going down the Moorgate Apartment chimney (two apartments east from me) from their flight trajectories. After 9:10 pm activity really quieted down, but suddenly at 9:18 pm I had one swift enter my chimney fast, and another swift swoop down, but fly past the chimney. The other three swifts were not seen again.

Jo Swartz and Betsy Thorsteinson monitored the freshly renovated Assiniboine Park Zoo tower on Wednesday. They had three swifts periodically flying overhead, and a couple minutes before sunset two of the swifts entered the tower, while the third swift left and was not seen again. Jo mentioned she saw the Pileated Woodpecker – but thankfully not near the tower! Lots of other trees for it to choose from, rather than the Chimney Swift tower!

A great group of residents at the Old Grace Housing Co-op in Wolseley continue to work with Provincial Species at Risk Biologist Tim Poole this year to monitor for Chimney Swifts at that site. The Housing Co-op has a built-in Chimney Swift tower, but has not had swifts using it since it was built. This year they noted six swifts overhead (two sets seemingly paired up). Despite some swooping low down to the tower, they had no entries on May 25^th.

Jeope Wolfe possibly solved where one of the Wolseley pairs of swifts went. He saw four of the swifts (in two pairs) plus a fifth swift (seen only once) flying overhead on May 25^th. Two of the swifts ended up down the chimney he was watching at the Lothian Apartments (very close to the Housing Co-op). I wonder if the others are using the Fleetwood Apartment chimney in the neighbourhood? To be investigated!

Blaire Barta was watching the chimney at the Behavioral Health Foundation in St Norbert. She observed six swifts flying around all afternoon and evening but saw no entries or attempted entries into the chimney. Of the six swifts, there seemed to be two paired up. All swifts left the area around 9:30 pm. Our other known Chimney Swift site in St Norbert is the St Norbert Parish Church. This site does not currently have a monitor this year, so if anyone would like to drop by during the roosting hour, there may be action there and we’d love to know about it!

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And that is it for our first monitoring round-up of the season! As I mentioned we have a few Chimney Swift mysteries forming at unmonitored chimneys, as well as some priority chimneys that still need a volunteer monitor! So, if you or someone you know would like to watch a chimney mentioned above or in a chimney in Winnipeg-City Centre, Winnipeg- South Point Douglas, Winnipeg- St James, or Stonewall, Manitou or Portage la Prairie send me an email at mbchimneyswift@gmail.com.

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Otherwise, the upcoming monitoring schedule is:

Happy switch-watching!

NRMP Night #2 (monitors who watch the big roosts): Sunday, May 29^th

MCSI Night #2 (all other monitors): Wednesday, June 1^st

NRMP Night #3: Thursday, June 2^nd

• Amanda

“RULES OF FEATHER” FOR MONITORING CHIMNEY SWIFT NEST SITES.

IMPORTANT DATES, NUMBERS, AND THINGS TO EXPECT AS CHIMNEY SWIFTS ARRIVE, THEN TRANSITION TO NEST BUILDING.

Before launching into today’s blog, this is your friendly reminder that the 2022 MCSI program rolls out on Wednesday, May 25. We look forward to your reports of evening monitoring sessions at both roost and nest sites, and daytime monitoring of nest sites.

The 4-night National Roost Monitoring Program also starts up on May 25. MCSI supports this program by sharing our data with the national program organizers. We hope our contributions help improve the understanding of spring arrival and distribution dynamics of Chimney Swifts across Canada.

Amanda has sent out monitoring information – check the blog posted on May 3 (2022 Monitoring on the Horizon) for all the details. For an updated list of high priority sites that need status updates to confirm residency, check Amanda’s blog posted on May 18 (They Are Arriving! Chimney Swift Sightings and Priority Chimneys).

Many of you will be monitoring potential nest sites. The first 30 minutes of monitoring (in the 90-minute monitoring period) is actually considered “daytime” monitoring in the hopes that we may pick up some signs to determine if each site is being used for nesting or roosting (or both). Here are some general “Rules of Feather” to guide your journey of observation through the early stages of the breeding season…

ARRIVAL – around Mother’s Day, start looking for spring arriving Chimney Swifts.

The arrival stage is characterized by the first spring reports of Chimney Swifts. The birds may be identified by vocalizations or visual confirmation. You may hear the swift’s characteristic chittering or see small numbers of swifts foraging in the area of known roost or nest sites. Migrants are often first noted in many Manitoba communities on the same day.

Chimney Swifts will enter their sites, usually within ½ hour of sunset (½ hour before to ½ hour after sunset = the roosting hour), to rest for the night by clinging onto the rough interior walls. Sometimes roosting entries are made before the roosting hour and sometimes swifts are in the air and unaccounted for as total darkness descends.

Morning departures by roosting Chimney Swifts are thought to occur within ½ hour of sunrise (½ hour before to ½ hour after sunrise) in good weather conditions. Cold, rainy weather may delay morning egress.

The behaviour of Chimney Swifts must be interpreted in the context of what is going on in their environment. Chimney Swift behaviour doesn’t always follow textbook, black ‘n’ white rules. So, interpretation of behaviour is not always straightforward. We often see roosting entries before the official roosting hour during cold, rainy weather but those early roosting entries may also happen when local foraging seems very good and the weather is warm ‘n’ dry. We’d like to interview those swifts to explain themselves!

Not to be confused with breeding behaviour that involves daytime use of a chimney, Chimney Swifts may seek daytime refuge in their sites during inclement weather; this may be for short or long periods. I have seen Chimney Swifts enter the Church chimney in St Adolphe during intense thunder storms. Once the electricity finished after ~45 minutes, out popped the birds. From my notes made on May 30, 2017: “yesterday Tim saw ~70 CHSW enter Assiniboine School roost ~noon as he was onsite doing an outreach program… [today the weather is] clearing after 2 miserable cold (8-12 C) rainy BLEEP days with strong winds.” Those swifts likely hunkered down for several hours. Winnie Wake, our devoted colleague in London, ON, has noted similar daytime entries of Chimney Swifts at roost sites, which were associated with very poor weather. During times of refuge, Chimney Swifts have the capacity to enter a state of torpor which is a useful energy saving strategy.

NEST BUILDING – look for daytime entries and exits; Chimney Swifts will be at work in the morning, afternoon, and early evening.

In the latter half of May to early June, a breeding pair of Chimney Swifts will begin to gather small diameter twigs from the ends of dead tree branches. The twigs are taken into the chimney and glued together, with sticky saliva, to form a small cup-shaped nest. Approximately 1 week after nest construction begins, the structure is large enough to hold an egg. As eggs are being laid approximately every other day, nest building continues. Indeed, nest building will extend through to the end of incubation (more on that in the next blog). Once eggs hatch, adults focus their efforts on feeding their youngsters and nest building stops.

In St Adolphe, all successful breeding attempts had nest building underway by June 3-4. So, that is an important date for monitors to be aware of generally. Elsewhere in the province, successful nesting attempts may have had slightly later onsets of nest building, or perhaps a more protracted nest building phase. A Brandon site diligently monitored by Margaret & Millie had several late August fledging dates. Tim established the Provincial record last year as he tracked a breeding pair of swifts that took up residence in site 2021-T04, a newly constructed tower in the Selkirk Mental Health Centre. Nest building started just after the tower was constructed ~ June 18 and fledging took place ~ Sept. 9 (see blog Sept. 24, 2021 – Inside Story, Inside the Chimneys at St Adolphe, Assiniboine Park Zoo and Selkirk).

At your nest site, you may see a breeding pair approach the chimney together and drop in, one after the other. Or, the pair may approach together and as one bird drops in, the partner will veer off to circle and enter, or depart the area (to feed or gather nest material, etc.). Alternately, single birds may approach and enter the chimney. Chimney Swifts may fly low over the chimney vocalizing as they pass by. Single or two consecutive exits may follow after a time lag. The two important time intervals ~ duration-in (entry to exit) and between-visit (exit to entry) ~ which characterize different stages of nesting, are variable during nest building.

Not all approaches end up with an entry to the chimney. It is important to repeat the all-important caveat “interpret the bird’s behaviour in the context of what is happening in the Chimney Swift’s environment”. You should be aware of typical behaviour for a specific stage of nesting vs. behaviour that results from disturbance. If somebody is working on a rooftop and pops up like a Jack or Jill-in-the-box as a Chimney Swift approaches, you should not be surprised to see the bird veer off and avoid an entry!  

To recap the “Rules of Feather” for behaviour and activity seen during the Nest Building (+egg laying) stage: there is a lot of variability in the activity pattern at nest sites; daytime entries by a single Chimney Swift or a pair flying together will occur; 1-2 entries and exits per hour are made; and the duration-in/between-visit time intervals are variable.

For my next nest site update, I’ll review late nest building/egg laying behaviour and how to recognize the transition to incubation. Until then, try to get a handle on nest building efforts at your nest site by June 3-4.

The promise of spring is with us now – sunshine and higher temperatures are on their way. As Ken W. in Dauphin commented, the recent rains could ripen a super load of insects for the birds to feed on. As more Chimney Swifts move into Manitoba, the action will increase at your roost and nest sites and maybe at the insect repellant sales counter! We’ve had continued reports of Chimney Swifts in Winnipeg, as well as in Souris since our last blog post. Let us know what you observe!

“Stay Calm, Be Brave, Wait for the Signs” (Thomas King, Jasper Friendly Bear, and Gracie Heavyhand, Dead Dog Café).

— Barb, still swift-less on the Isle of Stewart in the flooded Red River Valley.

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 25^th), 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

A SOGGY VARIATION OF NO-MOW MAY IS LINKED TO CHIMNEY SWIFT MONITORING! WHO KNEW?

In our area of the Red River valley south of Winnipeg, as is the case in many other locations in Manitoba this spring, there will be a huge variation of the no-mow May routine. Roads and yards and fields are underwater. We are happy to have the newly arrived Canada Geese pluck the sprouting grass from the exposed portions of our flood-protected hill. Sadly, farmers dealing with flood waters inundating fields face a no-sow spring. While the current boating season interferes with our personal start to the ‘22 Chimney Swift monitoring season, we’re lucky to have Amanda & Tim & Jo step in and help out with the spring to-do list in St Adolphe and Lower Fort Garry.

For all of you mobile monitors, particularly those of you who will track nest sites, here’s the check list to get underway (not all points are applicable to all folks):

1. Ensure chimneys are sealed except for the top opening. Chimney Swifts fall victim to light seduction – they are drawn out of chimney shafts by daylight seen through old, exposed duct work or open bottomed hearths etc.
2. Close your damper(s); keep a screen in place in front of the fire box.
3. Block/plug any gaps or cracks in the chimney masonry.
4. Seal and secure any openings e.g., face plates for old duct work.
5. Block access to ash pits located below the fire box.
6. Close doors to the cleanout trap(s).

• Familiarize yourself with the MCSI protocols for monitoring and save the dates that Amanda has sent you for the NRMP and MCSI programs  https://www.mbchimneyswift.com/news-and-posts/ ; May 3^rd – 2022 Monitoring on the Horizon.

• Consider extra monitoring to establish arrival dates. To know when the Chimney Swifts arrive, we need to know when they aren’t here! Those precious “0”, zero, nada, naught, zip, zilch counts from early-days monitoring helps establish the absence of swifts. It is often cold and usually tedious monitoring to see nothing, but it is all so valuable to narrow the window of true arrival.

• Arriving Chimney Swifts will feed locally and rest for the night in chimneys – at roost and nest sites. Depending on arrival dates, weather conditions, and insect availability etc., a breeding pair laying claim to a nest site may only use the chimney for roosting for a few days or weeks (e.g., in the spring of 2021, St. Adolphe swifts arrived May 14^th but did not nest build until May 27-June 4).

• Nest building is defined by daytime use (entries/exits).

Once your reports of arriving Chimney Swifts start flowing in to Amanda, we’ll review behaviour seen during the nest building stage. Good luck in the days and nights ahead,

— Barb

Although it may not feel like it, spring is (SLOWLY) on its way, and so are the Chimney Swifts. The Chimney Swifts are currently stalled just a bit south of us with the northern-most edge of their migration just reaching into Minnesota. The northern states have been facing similar weather challenges to Manitoba, so the weather likely has not helped! That being said, the majority of “our” Chimney Swifts in Manitoba typically don’t arrive until mid to late May, regardless of our spring weather. When you start seeing Chimney Swifts please report to MCSI, we’d love to know!

Chimney Swift sightings in April 2022 from eBird.org. Each purple rectangle is at least one Chimney Swift.

With the 2022 Chimney Swift season approaching, we’ve been working to finalize our monitoring season plans. For most sites monitoring will start on Wednesday, May 25^th and continue on Wednesday each week until June 22^nd(rain dates are Thursdays each week). By the end of June, we should be able to determine if the Chimney Swifts have made a nesting attempt in a monitored chimney, or if they were using the chimney as a roost site only.

With the federal Chimney Swift Recovery Strategy (currently in draft form) coming out in 2022, there is an opportunity to protect the chimneys used by Chimney Swifts (called “residences”). For a chimney to be a residence it has to have hosted Chimney Swifts at least once in the last three years. As a result, we have combed our database and made a list of sites that either have not been monitored for the past three years, or have not had a swift spotted in three years. These sites are a high priority for monitoring this year. If you are interested in being able to make a big difference in habitat protection for Chimney Swifts, please consider monitoring one of the priority sites! Priority sites are in the towns, and Winnipeg neighbourhoods listed below. Contact the MCSI coordinator (Amanda) at mbchimneyswift@gmail.com for specific locations.

• Lac du Bonnet                                                                   
• Manitou
• Morden                                                                              
• Portage la Prairie
• Souris                                                                                 
• Stonewall
• The Pas                                                                               
• Winnipeg – City Centre
• Winnipeg – East and West Kildonan              
• Winnipeg – Fort Garry
• Winnipeg – Fort Rouge                                                   
• Winnipeg- South Point Douglas
• Winnipeg – St James                                                        
• Winnipeg – West End

For 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). NRMP nights are on May 25^th, May 29^th, June 2^nd and June 6^th. For NRMP nights we are particularly looking for volunteers to watch the sites below:

• Carman Memorial Hall, Carman
• St Paul’s United Church, Souris
• 5000 Crescent Road West (Rufus Prince Building), Portage la Prairie
• Ecole Assiniboine School in St James, Winnipeg
• 2187 Portage Avenue (Moorgate Apartments) in St James, Winnipeg
• 424 River Avenue (River Manor Apartment) in Fort Rouge, Winnipeg

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. We ask that volunteers watch their site starting from 60 minutes before sunset until 30 minutes after sunset (90 minutes total). In that time volunteers record numbers of swifts seen in the air, as well as the time and number of swifts that enter and exit the chimney. For more details on how we monitor swifts, and the datasheet we use, you can find our 2022 protocol and data sheet at the following links:

2022 Monitoring Protocol (pdf)

2022 Data Sheet (pdf)

2022 Data Sheet (Word)

If you are looking for a chimney to monitor in your neighbourhood or are willing to travel to a site, send an email to myself (Amanda) at mbchimneyswift@gmail.com and I would be happy match you with a monitoring site. We have more chimneys than monitors each year, and we’d love to have you join our effort to help the Chimney Swift.

• Amanda