Our update starts with a special shoutout to Gord and Louise who made a special recon trip to Estevan, SK. Gord is an experienced monitor who can spot swifts, hear swifts, and pick out potential sites with ease. After the 4.5 hour trip from Portage La Prairie, 5 Chimney Swifts obliged with an appearance over Main St., Estevan. The birds were flying quite low for mid-day. Six potential roost/nest sites were identified and the information has been passed along to Becky Magnus, the acting coordinator of SCSI (rmagnus@naturesask.ca). Chimney Swifts in the prairie provinces are well served by Gord and Louise’s activities – thanks for all you do! If anyone can provide historical or recent information about Saskatchewan Chimney Swifts, get in touch with Becky.
Back in Manitoba, we have had a lot of reports for May outside of the NRMP dates. Here is a summary of opportunistic observations and monitoring reports:
- John has discovered a new site on William Ave which hosted 3 Chimney Swifts. Great sleuthing in finding this chimney!
- Laurie has reported in from St Francois Xavier; she enjoys nightly viewings of Chimney Swifts flying over her home. Hopefully, an active site can be tracked down in the area.
- Another new enthusiast, Garry, has confirmed that a 2015-discovered East Kildonan site is active again this year with a pair of Chimney Swifts.
- Simone has observed swifts in the area of Scotia St. at Belmont.
- Liis has observed a swift around a St Joseph Ave site that has not been monitored for several years.
- Larry has caught sight of swifts SE of River and Osborne.
- Tim had a fortuitous sighting of 2 swifts dropping into a 2015-discovered Fort Rouge chimney late one morning. It was another moment to reinforce the “you never know when, you never know where” activity of swifts. “Head’s up, eyes to the sky” rules during the monitoring season!
MCSI is fortunate to have returning volunteers and new monitors observing many chimneys. NRMP-2 weather was very obliging and a lot of early reports have come in:
- Ken, in Dauphin, had 49 roosting swifts – up from 29 on NRMP-1.
- Gord, in Portage, saw 9 in the air and 2 entered the Trinity United Church. This has been a successful nest site in previous years.
- Good news came in from La Broquerie – David saw 3 Chimney Swifts enter the church with minutes left in the monitoring period.
- Chris, in the Wolseley neighbourhood of Winnipeg, witnessed a classic meteoric entry. Beyond the “head’s up, eyes to the sky” rule, we should add the “don’t blink” caveat!
- Margaret and Millie in Brandon, longstanding supporters of the program, had 3 Chimney Swifts roost. In 2015, a successful nesting attempt was tracked all season long through to fledging and migration. Hopefully, 2016 is another good year for Margaret, Millie, and the Brandon swifts.
- Derek is tracking the movements of a flock near Oak St. in River Heights, Winnipeg. A new site is being monitored now with the hopes of documenting activity.
- Yvonne is also monitoring a new Fort Rouge site which holds promise – nothing in so far, but occupancy can change quickly at this time of the year.
In St Jean Baptise, Luc has monitored on both NRMP-1, -2 dates and 2 swifts entered each night. This is excellent news as the top layers of the chimney were removed during last fall’s renovation/repair as part of the Swift Champion program. It is important feedback from the swifts that they consider the lower chimney height acceptable for use. - In St. Adolphe, all 5 nest sites were monitored. Six Chimney Swifts have been in town since the long weekend and they partitioned themselves as:
-SE Club Amical = 0; NE Club Amical = 2 – Kathy and Rob were onsite.
-Brodeur Bros. = 0; Jacquie and Roberta noted an entry/exit which seemed to be a swift checking out the chimney quickly.
-Church = 3 ; Lewis and Ken helped Frank break the curse of never seeing the most Chimney Swifts in one night (a good omen for ’16!)
-Main St = 1; Barb is hopeful that a local redistribution of swifts will result in a breeding pair taking up residence.
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- In Selkirk, the bird club was out in force and all the known sites in town were monitored – all were occupied:
-Winona note 3 roosting birds at the Merchants Hotel.
-Gerald saw 2 swifts at 241 Manitoba Ave.
-Robert recorded 2 entries at the Infirmary Chimney.
-Carol, Bonnie, and Gerald saw 1 entry at the Yellow Brick site.
Carol, Bonnie, and Gerald also had a direct view of the Large Stack where 25 entries and 3 exits occurred. When you adjust for exits made during the monitoring session, a total of 22 swifts roosted for the night. Interestingly, the NRMP-1 total was 33 in only the large stack and NRMP-2 total = 30 in town. Some dispersal – locally and beyond – seemed to have taken place between May 25 and 29.
The weather has not established a positive cadence yet. Cold, rainy weather enveloped the province again after NRMP-2 and is persisting through June 1. The promise of a sunny night for NRMP-3 THURSDAY, JUNE 2 is with us though. Dauphin, Brandon, Portage La Prairie, Pine Falls, Steinbach, and Winnipeg areas will emerge as a sunny day after a cold, wet night. It will be interesting to see if migrants have been arriving during this challenging feeding weather and how Chimney Swifts are partitioning themselves at nest sites…
READ ALL ABOUT IT! In case you missed the article in last weekend’s Free Press, you might want to check In Conversation with Tim Poole
We look forward to hearing from you after Thursday night’s session,
Barb for the MCSI team: webmaster – Frank Machovec; Habitat Stewardship and Outreach Coordinator – Tim Poole; Steering Committee Members – Christian Artuso, Ron Bazin, Neil Butchard, Lewis Cocks, Ken De Smet, Nicole Firlotte, and Rob Stewart.