The first week in review

The First Week of Chimney Swift Monitoring

Our first official night of Chimney Swift monitoring started off chilly! May 26^th was the first night of monitoring under both the MCSI and NRMP monitoring protocols and it was great that everyone was monitoring together. We had people out in Dauphin, Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, St Jean Baptiste, La Broquerie, St Francois Xavier and Selkirk.

Unfortunately, with the cool weather last week, and particularly on Wednesday, we had quite a few zero counts. Some sites likely did not have swifts, but at other sites it is possible that the swifts went down the chimneys before our counts started due to the cool weather itself, as well as the low temperatures and wind keeping the swifts’ insect prey grounded.

Justin Schell monitored at the Goodnews Fellowship Church for us this year on May 26^th and did not see any swifts. This previously used site has not hosted swifts for a number of years, but we know that swifts do sometimes move around, so we are still hoping they may recognize this chimney is a great site (and hosted by a great congregation of chimney swift “landlords”)!

Francene, Jack, Carl and Debby watched the artificial chimney tower at Old Grace on May 26^th and unfortunately did not see any swifts either.

A new Chimney Swift volunteer to our program this year, Anastasia, set up outside the apartments on 25 Valhalla on May 26^th for us. Breanne is also a new volunteer this year and was set up at the Maryland FoodFare to watch the newly renovated (by MCSI) chimney. Unfortunately, on both of their first nights out, they did not see any swifts. However, we thank them (and all of you) for persevering despite the cool and windy weather!

Luc monitored the St. Jean Baptiste Church on Wednesday. Once again, no entries were seen but he did have one swift do a vocal flyover just after 8:30pm.

Blaire watched the St Norbert Behavioural Health Foundation chimney on May 26^th. She did not have any swifts during her monitoring period, however, she reported that on May 14^th there were four swifts that entered the chimney around 8:45pm for the night.

I watched the Grant- Wilton Apartments in River Heights on Wednesday. Like many others, I saw no swifts, a couple of crows and gulls were my entertainment for the evening instead.

Phil and Barbara covered two of our chimneys on River Avenue on May 26^th. Barbara was at the Rosemount Apartments. She had a brief view of what may have been a Chimney Swift flyover at 8:30 pm, but no swifts entered the apartment. Phil was at the Biltmore Apartments with no swifts to be seen.

Mike and Michèle Tumber took up their usual spot at the Roman Catholic Church in St Francois Xavier on May 26^th. They had two swift entries, but noted that the swifts entered the chimney almost a full hour earlier than they normally see in their monitoring periods with entries at 8:27 pm and 8:28 pm.

Blair watched the chimney oat 690 St Joseph on May 26^th. He had one flyby near 9:00 pm, but no entries. This building has hosted swifts for the last two years.

Gordon was out watching the Rufus Prince Building in Portage La Prairie on May 26^th.  He had three swifts entering the chimney. Two swifts entered at 8:55 pm, and one more a couple of minutes later at 8:59 pm.

Gary and Marj watched the chimney at St John’s Ravenscourt School on May 27^th.  They had two entries, but quite far apart, which is somewhat unusual. One Chimney Swift entered at 8:48pm and the second did not enter until 9:46pm.

Jo was also out on May 27^th watching for us. She was stationed at the Assiniboine Park Zoo tower and was tasked with keeping an eye out for resident woodpeckers in addition to the Chimney Swifts! Woodpeckers have been creating holes in the wooden tower structure (probably liking the nice noise the hollow “tree” makes for territorial drumming). She saw three swifts winging overhead periodically, and then had one swift enter at 9:30 pm, and a second enter at 9:54 pm. The third swift was still overhead feeding near the tower when she had to leave for the night just before 10:00 pm.

Garry watched 722 Watt St in Winnipeg on May 27^th. Unfortunately, like several others, there were no swifts to be seen.

Jon was at 465 St Mary Ave in Winnipeg on May 30th. He spotted three swifts in the air just before 9:00 pm but they headed off to the south instead of going down the chimney. Unfortunate as his spot had a nice picnic table, which would have made a good home base for swift watching!

Gerald was out watching the two chimneys at the St Andrews Lock and Dam maintenance compound for a couple of nights. On May 27^th he headed out and saw one swift each drop into the north and south chimneys.

On May 30^th Tim Poole and the Selkirk Birders coordinated a monitoring session of all the possible sites in the area to see how the swifts are distributing themselves with the two original chimneys coming down and the three artificial chimney towers going up. Gerald was at the St Andrews Lock and Dam maintenance compound. For the north chimney he reported one entry at 9:35pm, and one at 9:52pm. For the south chimney he reported one entry at 9:45, one at 9:53 and two at 9:54 pm.

In Selkirk Tim was watching both the large tower and the attached tower at the Mental Health Centre, Robert was watching the administration building chimney at the Mental Health Centre, Winona was at the Merchant’s Hotel, and Ray and Sibyl were at the site on Main St. When Tim arrived there were two swifts, which increased to three after about 10 minutes. He wrote “All evening there were 2 or 3 swifts present, each time they appeared they would loop over the tower and seemingly float north in the wind… At 9:11 the flock was up to 4 birds, and seemingly 2 pairs. By 9:28 there were 3 and they seemed to be doing the classic swift chase. At 9:35 there were 5, 4 to the north between the yellow brick and the admin building, and one could be heard chittering to the south and at 9:38 we were up to 6. Great, some swifts to share between the chimneys and towers!” At 9:48 Robert noted an entry into the administration building chimney. There were no entries into the yellow brick chimney or either of the new free-standing towers. Winona had two swifts enter at the Merchants Hotel, one at 9:40pm and one at 9:49pm. Ray and Sibyl had no sightings of swifts.

For NRMP monitoring Frank and Jacquie were keeping their eyes (and Timmies) on the St Joaquim Church in La Broquerie for NRMP nights 1 and 2 (May 26^th and May 30^th). No swifts were seen the first night. If you have been following the MCSI blog for a while, you know that it is not a monitoring season without several Chimney Swift mysteries. Frank and Jacquie have our first of the year. Frank wrote, “We staked out the church in La Broquerie for night 2, and we have good news and bad news, and a bit of a mystery. There was activity in both chimneys and there were five vocal Chimney Swifts in the area from 20:10ish to 21:32, but we only had two birds in chimneys at quitting time. After two birds entered the larger chimney at 21:32, things went quiet. From our vantage point (and our degree of caffeination) I don’t think we missed any entries. Mysterious birds indeed.” We only know of the one site (two chimneys) in La Broquerie, so where did the extra swifts go?

Beth and myself both watched the chimney at Assiniboine School (on different evenings) for NRMP. Beth took the first watch for May 26^th. She saw seven swifts in the sky, with four entries just before 9:00pm. There were three remaining swifts who flew overhead several times, last seen around 9:30. As this site is an NRMP site, I monitored four days later on NRMP-2 May 30^th. It was once again cold and windy, very much like May 26^th. I had one swift that left the chimney, with a total of three swifts doing fly-bys, but no one entering the chimney. As this was unusual for this site (which is usually our biggest roost in Winnipeg), I went back the next day with warmer weather, and calmer winds to see if the lack of birds was a result of birds huddled in the chimney due to cold weather, or a real lack of birds at the site. Unfortunately, my experience was very similar. Four birds consistently circling overhead for much of the evening. 10 minutes after sunset six birds appeared and flew low to the chimney, but only one entered, and the others flew off. Just before I left the single bird came out of the chimney and flew off as well. The second swift mystery of the season. Swift roost sites can change – indeed we have seen sites “lose” and “gain” their roosts before in MCSI memory, so we will have to do our best to piece together what has happened.

Ken and Jan have been out for both NRMP nights at the Dauphin roost site. On May 26^th for the first night Ken relayed a night of much excitement, “Well, here we go again, first night of the spring national roost count, an hour before sunset and we’re thinking “why are we here this early, normally these swifts don’t show up until after sunset, oh well, we’re here now”. Got out the data sheet and filling it in when Jan says “I can hear them!” and we glance at each other and then turn our heads to the sky…. Now filling in the bottom of the data page and there’s more swifts flying by, probably same ones, 2, 4, 6, 8, . . . .24, 26, . . . 30+ well what’s happening here? We’ve only been here 10 minutes! Good, got the data sheet filled in and here they come again but they look like they are circling to go down, no way, but 6 just went down. We look at each other and say together “Oh NO” we know what’s coming or should I say going down!! With that we start counting out loud: 1, 2, 3, nope that one went past, 4, 5, . . .. quickly write down 25+, add two minutes of time to the data sheet and start again: 1, 2, 3, . . .. OK only 12+ that time: 2 minutes later 6 more go down and the sky is clear. Look at the watch and it’s still 30 minutes till sunset, a new record for Dauphin, all the swifts tucked into bed with an hour of count time to go! Total count for first night 49+ swifts.” Quite a contrast to the swift experiences by counters in more southernly areas of the province so far this year!

NRMP night #2 for the Dauphin roost went more as usual with Ken noting that the evening was quiet until around 10:00 pm when the swifts started entering the chimney. By 10:04 pm everyone had gone down for the night for a total of 39 Chimney Swifts.

— Amanda Shave