Our final National Roost Monitoring Program (NRMP) evening on June 4th threw up some interesting results again!
We will begin this update with our webmaster extraordinaire, Frank, and his partner in crime, Jacquie. They headed back down to Otterburne for another night of bewilderment and confuddlement. Here goes:
‘After consuming Timmies beverages, we conclude:
Well, some unusual behaviour at Providence College again…
Looks like five CHSW using the college chimneys (3 in #550 left, 2 in #551 middle, and none in the right hand #553)
We did see an “extra” bird that was never seen to stay in a chimney, but…
We did have instances of this (??) bird doing an immediate entry/exit into the middle chimney. These events did not look like “missed approaches” or an exchange between an incoming CHSW and an exiting nesting bird. Could this be some sort of aggressive behaviour directed toward the nesting CHSW? (Seems to me that Barb has seen this sort of thing at St Adolphe.)
So, looks like six CHSW in the area with five using the chimneys on campus. We’ll see what happens next time.’
Now I’m confused. Why? Because Barb looked over the sheets and had her say:
‘It seems that the action distills down to:
#550 – LEFT: 5 were in the chimney at peak time and 4 roosted for the night. The last exit was at 21:51 and that swift didn’t go into any of your other sites. The 20:39 exit was during the daytime so nest building is indicated.
#551 – MID: 3 were in the chimney at peak time (your 3 consecutive exits at 21:31-21:32 showed 1 in the chimney at the start of your session) and 1 roosted for the night. The last exit at 21:50 could possibly have been the bird that entered #550-LEFT at 21:50 – hard to tell. The 20:39 entry was during the daytime so nest building is indicated.
#552 – RIGHT: thankfully no action took place here!
Overall, you are bang on with at least 1 unaccounted for swift at the end of the evening; perhaps even 2-3 swifts depending on whether the jumper was moving between the middle and left side! Your observation of 5 swifts at 21:09 is when the middle was loaded with 1 seen entrant plus 1 that had been in the chimney at the start of your session so that indicated 7 swifts.’
Speaking of Barb, she joined with Rob to go back to La Salle and see if the pair (of swifts, not Barb and Rob) have kissed and made up yet. Let’s see:
‘Harmony was restored in La Salle last night ~ all three swifts roosted together in the WEST chimney. As for NRMP-3, 1 swift came in ahead of the pair. Lots of feeding going on. We didn’t have mosquitoes after us at all but you could see airborne insects in the air column with back lighting. Still no sign of nest building for 50 minutes of daytime viewing; the three entries were in the roosting hour. ‘
Continuing in the southeast, Keelie had to leave early and could only confirm 2 birds in the skies of Steinbach. East to La Broquerie, and David:
‘Even though they would never keep still to be counted, there were DEFINITELY 7 birds flying around. There may have been another pair but as there are several Purple Martin houses in town it is easy to confuse martins with swifts especially at a distance when one is scanning the sky. In other words my errant pair mighthave been martins, not only tonight but also the other night.
In spite of seeing 7 in the air I only counted 6 entries – 3 in the small chimney and 3 in the large chimney. On one occasion one came out of the large chimney and very shortly after one went down the small chimney.’
Life is never simple!
David in Morden has been an absolute star this spring as he searches for a first confirmed swift site in town. Here is the latest report:
I found a spot where I could watch both the clock tower and the chimney next to the CIBC bank but unfortunately, not many birds were observed this evening, I never saw more than a single bird in flight and I did not see any chimney entries AGAIN. On a positive note, I did see a bird (perhaps 2?) fly down towards the rooftops a block away and there is a promising looking chimney in the area. The very old chimney that has my attention is on the north side of the 300 block of Stephen St. Pictures included, one from Stephen St, one from the balcony of the Kenmore Theater (I met the owner who gave me permission to go up, his name is Richard)
So I’ve got my spot staked out for the next monitoring session, wish me luck once again! Personal mission is to find a chimney being used here in Morden!
I have a feeling that this mystery might be solved on the additional monitoring night – we might get lucky even….
The evening was more successful in Selkirk this time. Nia and Linda counted 21 swifts entering the large stack, a relief following on from the bizarre 4 from the previous monitoring evening. They also spotted the 2 swifts entering the yellow brick building. Robert and Donna counted 2 enter the infirmary, and Ray and Sybil likewise counted 2 at the Merchant’s. Gerald was also able to count the first swift entry of 2018 at the Lord Selkirk Hotel, but saw nothing at the East Selkirk Hydro Stack.
Moving on to Winnipeg, Barbara had no luck at the Old Grace, as did Tim at the zoo (although he did get to show an enthusiastic gentlemen a nighthawk feeding over the park). Lynnea had no luck at a site in St Vital. Kelly-Anne did count a pair of swifts at 378 Academy. Bob and Valerie had a quiet night at Silver Heights, only 1 swift entering, but Sabina had 6 entries and 1 exit at the nearby Moorgate, a total of 5.
John had a surprising early exit at 303 Assiniboine, ending with 34 in one chimney and 14 in the other. A follow-up daytime survey though did not yield much more information, i.e. no evidence of breeding. A big event for Pat and Dave at the Gordon King Memorial United Church – 2 entries, at last success after a few zeros.
Margaret and Millie were unable to monitor on the 4th – they were due to watch a talk by Dennis Fast. Being so committed, they went out on the 3rd, and had their usual pair in the Brandon chimney.
Finally, Ken and Jan continue to do great things in Dauphin. This is their report:
Another national swift chimney observation evening has come to a close. Here in Dauphin we split our monitors to cover the “old” roost and 2 other potential chimneys and had success at all 3 chimneys. Unfortunately, the “kids” decided they did not want to go to bed so we went well past the observation time until we could no longer see birds flying and going down chimneys but we could still hear them “laughing” back at us overhead.
The “old” roost saw 21+ swifts go down, “new” chimney #2 at the Watson Arts Centre (we call it “The WAC” here in Dauphin) had 2 go down and, site number #3 along Main Street had 3 go down. As we ended our watch, we met back by the “old” roost viewing area and could still hear swifts talking to each other and it was now 10:30, 45 minutes past sunset! Dauphin count 26+ in total.
Thank you once more everyone. We will update on the last monitoring evening in the next day or so.
— Tim Poole
