Well, the chimney swift season is drawing to an end. It seems like only yesterday when we were scanning the skies for the arrival of our favourite avian migrants!
Our ” four day viewing experiment” turned out to be disappointing due to poor weather and some late returns of swifts. Later results have been indicated apparent breeding success at many sites in Winnipeg, Saint Adolphe, Brandon, and La Broquerie. Results in other sites are less than clear, and it’s hard to know if sites are abandoned or being used outside of the “roosting hour” time window. Our “old faithful” roost sites in Selkirk and Dauphin have been, well, faithful.
We have reports from some new sites like Wolseley, the West End, Steinbach, and Lac du Bonnet.
The search for new roost sites has not fared well- no swift activity was detected at a large chimney near Rose Isle (former Leary brickyard) and the large stack at the former Richlu factory in the Point Douglas area.
Although we haven’t pinned down the chimney being used, there are reports of swifts seen in Lac du Bonnet and The Pas. Monitoring reports from the Bethesda Hospital in Steinbach and Providence College in Otterburne suggest the existence of some unknown sites near the known chimneys.
The results are posted on the website at http://www.mbchimneyswift.ca/Documents/2013_sites.pdf
So far I have received reports from over 50 sites.
So, many thanks for your reports, and keep ’em coming.
Frank Machovec