“Team from Winnipeg’s My Place Realty Step up to Save Manitoba Chimney Swifts”
On Friday July 27th, Nicole Firlotte, Christian Artuso and Tim Poole attended a plaque presentation with staff of My Place Realty, a Winnipeg-based company. The plaque was presented in recognition of conserving Chimney Swift habitat on an apartment roof in Wolseley.
The story below was written by Tom Haughton, Vice President of My Place Realty, who attended the presentation with members of his team explains below what happened, and the successful outcome of their endeavours, making our latest, very worthy Swift Champion plaque recipients.
Earlier this year, contractors working for My Place Realty (MPR) had to replace a boiler in one of their Winnipeg buildings (at 129 Lenore) and subsequently capped a chimney in the building, unaware that chimney swifts had used this as their home in past years.
Using twigs and their own sticky saliva, the swifts construct a cup-shaped nest well down inside brick chimneys. Once the eggs are hatched, the young birds spend about 30 days in the nest, before heading south for the winter (usually by late August) to South America. They are the only species of swift that breed in eastern North America as far west as Manitoba.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has listed the chimney swift as a threatened species, and it is now listed on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act. The chimney swift is also listed as a threatened species under the Manitoba Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act.
Not surprisingly, the contractors working for MPR knew nothing of the nests, let alone the swift’s threatened species status. In April, Nicole Firlotte, a manager with Manitoba Sustainable Development, contacted the site’s construction manager, explaining that two swifts had been seen entering and exiting the chimney in 2017 and previously, suggesting that it was used as a nesting site.
Manitoba Sustainable Development explained that the company was required by law not to disturb the habitat of a threatened species. As a fix to the problem, the construction manager suggested that they uncap another chimney on the same building that they had just capped off. That chimney could be the new home for the swifts’ nest.
As migratory swifts typically return to Manitoba in mid-May, this proposal came just in time to provide a suitable alternative for the birds. Construction manager, Ken Defoort said Nicole Firlotte was very happy with MPR’s “swift” response.
The Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative (MCSI) is a program of many partner organisations, lead by Nature Manitoba, with over a hundred volunteers who have found chimneys used by swifts across southern Manitoba, which are monitored annually. MCSI is dedicated to finding stewardship opportunities to prevent the loss of swift nesting and roosting sites and was delighted with the clever solution at Lenore. MCSI wants to work with the company on other buildings MPR owns that may have old chimneys, and possibly nesting chimney swifts.
“We support initiatives like this,” says Tom Haughton, Vice President of MPR. “At the core of our business is a commitment to corporate social responsibility. This includes philanthropic projects like this one – working in partnership with organizations like the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative to ensure the survival of our natural neighbours. We embrace this project wholeheartedly and are encouraging other companies to take on similar projects.”
MCSI has prepared a plaque for MPR, calling the company “Chimney Swift Champions.”
— Tom Haughton, Vice President of My Place Realty
