It ain’t over ‘til it’s over!
As the chimney swift season starts to wind up, we have fewer reports coming into the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative. However, a few volunteers still see Chimney Swifts hanging around their monitoring chimneys. So away we go…
On August 17th and 22nd Blair watched the chimney at 690 St Joseph. He watched two chimney swifts entering the chimney, one made an aborted entry before actually going down the chimney. On August 22nd he had several swifts fly by, but no one entering the chimney for the night during his monitoring period. His conclusion was “I believe they have moved on, collecting for the trip south.”
On August 23rd Gerald watched the Selkirk Health Centre Infirmary for the evening roosting session, and noted what looked like fledging. There were a total of eight entries and two exits over the 45 minutes monitoring session, ending with five swifts in the chimney up from two swifts the week before.
On August 23rd Barb did a monitoring session in St Adolphe with her report below “It was a lovely, perfect Sunday evening to watch the skies around the St Adolphe Church. The temperature was warm at 23 C, a light breeze blew through on occasion, and as daylight faded, the cloud cover was lifting upwards to better define the chimney rim. I was really expecting to have a season closer but twice, 2 feeding swifts appeared over the cemetery/field. Just after sunset, a swift came in towards the Church chimney rim at good speed but the bird had a very slow entry, with a stall, and wing flapping alignment on the descent. A few minutes later, a swift “just appeared” over the north rim. As this bird was very low, the sighting was brief, but there was a good view of the swift doing a slight upward alignment and then a constant wing flap to “hover” over the rim before dropping in for the night.
It appears that migrants are using the Church chimney. I interpret the slow, measured entries to the chimney as an indication of swifts which were being prudent about entering their roosting portal. The Church fledglings of this year had faster, smoother entries to the chimney as their flight proficiency increased. So while there was no indication of this year’s Church family of 4 in St Adolphe (they were last seen flying in the area on August 12), it was reassuring to know that the chimney was still hosting other swifts as they finish their residency in Manitoba for 2020. It ain’t over ’til it’s over…”
Margaret and Amelia did a monitoring session on August 23rd and ended up with a bit of a puzzle. In previous weeks they had been seeing pretty obvious feeding behavior from two chimney swifts. Went they watched on the 23rd they suddenly had just one swift using the chimney. They decided to watch again on August 24th, but saw the same pattern repeat. Calculating the approximate period from hatch to fledge, the fledge date could have been August 18th-21st (in between monitoring sessions). But if they did fledge, they were not using the nesting chimney. A mystery, for sure.
On August 24th at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre large stack Gerald had two Chimney Swift entries with no exits during the hour surrounding sunset. He watched the large stack again on August 25th and had the same two entries, noting that both “had an awkward flight”.
Winona watched the yellow brick chimney at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre on August 24th and had one entry and one exit, so no swifts ended up using the chimney by the time 30 minutes after sunset had rolled around. Winona watched the same chimney again the next night, with the same outcome.
Gerald watched the Selkirk Mental Health Centre Infirmary chimney on August 25th as well. He ended up with four swifts using the chimney at the end of the monitoring period after watching a variety of entries and exits.
On August 26th Gerald watched the chimneys on the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance Compound. It looks like the young from the south chimney have fledged. There was much wing fluttering and several entry attempts for some of the swifts to enter this chimney. This would be our program’s latest fledge date recorded, however Gerald also noted that there may have been an even later fledge date for Chimney Swifts using the Selkirk Mental Health Centre Infirmary chimney in the past.
Gerald monitored the St Andrews Lock and Dam Maintenance facility chimneys on August 31st during the roosting period. At site 2018-16.1 he had a total of four swifts in the chimney at the end of the night. At the second location on site (2018-16.2) he ended the night with four swifts in the chimney. For both chimneys Gerald noted that there may have been more entries before he was able to arrive on site.
Nia and Linda watched the yellow brick chimney at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre on September 1st for 45 minutes around sunset. They had a total of 7 entries fairly evenly distributed over that period, with no exits.
On August 27th Ken in Dauphin writes “Well I sat at the Dauphin Roost #600 this evening for the roosting hour. The hour was split with the time before sunset and the time after sunset. Before sunset there were 4 ins and 3 outs. After sunset there were 6 ins and 0 outs. At one point prior to sunset there was almost a collision over the chimney as there was one swift that came out and another went in virtually passing each other at the chimney rim. There didn’t appear to be any unaccounted-for swifts when I left with there being the 2 nesting birds and 5 migrants (total of 7 for the night).”
On August 29th Ken once again watched the Dauphin Roost site (site 600). While things started off similar to the behavior seen on August 27th (a number of entries and exits) it then changed! Ken writes “Five minutes after sunset four swifts flew over; three minutes later two swifts went down the chimney but four others flew past; four minutes later two more swifts went down with the last one obviously doing lots of wing flapping; two minutes later one more swift went down but two more were seen flying; four minutes later 3 swifts flew past with a minute later 1 going down with lots of wing flapping (8:50 PM); finally two singles went down followed quickly by a third which did lots of wing flapping.” Previous counts had seven swifts using this chimney, while this count had nine. Could the two additional swifts be fledged young? Barb noted that with migrating chimney swifts passing through, a change in number of swifts at a chimney this time of year don’t necessarily indicated fledged young. However, in Ken’s case the “follow the leader” approach of young imitating adults entering the chimney is a strong indicator that these extra swifts may, in fact, be fledglings.
On September 1st, Ken reported that Chimney Swifts are still hanging on in Dauphin. He says, “Very overcast, windy and rain, single digit lows, but the swifts were still out doing their thing. There was no big flock arriving at sunset but individual birds coming and going.” He also suspects that there may be fledged swifts hanging around with some swifts seemingly not knowing where the chimney was, others trying to enter the chimney with the wind at their backs (and then overshooting the chimney entry), and one set following a “leader” swift into the chimney. Overall, Ken’s assessment was “There were at least 5-6 chimney entries that were done by inexperienced fliers but any one of these could have left and come back to try again gaining experience. There were 15 entries and 5 exits but when you work it out on paper, there appears to be 11 swifts overnighting in the chimney, up from 8 three days ago.”
We will have at least one more week’s worth of reports, as it seems some swifts are sticking around despite our recent cool and windy weather. So, stay tuned!
— Amanda Shave
