Another week goes by, and we have more swift reports flying by. Right now it seems that our swifts are at varying stages, from the latter stage of incubation all the way through to feeding non-brooded young. In fact, Barbara and Phil in Osborne Village gave some great examples of this in their weekly update:
‘It looks as though we have two chimneys (Royal Oak, and the Biltmore) with newly hatched young, one (Clarke)with CHSW who roost early (maybe eggs not yet hatched), and two with no daytime activity at all.
Thanks to Barb for her analysis of CHSW activity after hatching. It helps to make sense of the activity we are seeing, and meant that I stayed an extra 5 minutes at the Biltmore as the entry/exit pattern of every 20 minutes suggested they were due again at that time.’
Leah watched an experimental chimney on Lilac. We say experimental, as Google Earth images suggest there were 6 small entry holes on the top of the chimney. We thought it might be worth a shot at seeing if swifts were using something a bit funky. Leah reported thus:
‘No entries, unfortunately. Will they seriously enter such small holes? I had ruled out these types of chimneys as usable…’
The answer seems to be no. This would not be the first Tim Poole fail of the monitoring week!
Kelsey went roaming in St James, and possibly wishes she hadn’t:
‘The first night I stayed and watched the 2 chimneys on the “Piano Building” the whole time. I saw 2 swifts high overhead, they got lower overtime, and the last time I saw them they were headed northwest, so I went and checked where they might have gone. I found a house on Roseberry with a good looking chimney.
The next night I went was going to watch that chimney, but I got so excited trying to follow the group of 10 that I didn’t end up watching that chimney at all. this time the group seemed to hover a little more northeast of the “Piano Building”. There is an odd looking small chimney on the back of Underworld Scuba, as well as a chimney on the back of Liberty Full Gospel Chapel, on Marjorie. This is an odd looking chimney (and the picture on google maps shows a cap that is no longer there), but they were swooping quite low towards it repeatedly, before disappearing.‘
Garry visited Watt Street in East Kildonan on July 9th, and sent the following:
‘Activity continues at 712 Watt Street. Timing of visits indicates feeding brooded young, so all appears to be good at this site!‘
Gerald sent us a great number of excellent updates. Here is a summary of the latest news from the Selkirk Birdwatching Club:
- On July 3rd, Linda and Nia counted 14 in the large stack and 2 in the yellow chimney at Selkirk Mental Health Centre;
- On July 4th, Robert and Donna counted 24 in the large stack, 2 in the Infirmary and 2 in the yellow chimney at Selkirk Mental Health Centre;
- On July 4th, Winona counted 1 in the Merchant’s Hotel;
- On July 5th, Winona counted 3 in the Merchant’s Hotel;
- On July 7th, Gerald counted 2 in the southeast chimney and 0 in the southwest chimney at Lower Fort Garry.
In Brandon, Margaret and Millie sent three update sheets, showing the pair in the Orange Block still active on June 30, July 2 and July 7.
Janice did this weeks Trinity United Church watch in Portage la Prairie, and had only a single entry.
Ken compiled the Dauphin report on behalf of the team, with Pat, Marilyn and Jan in place to watch the swifts:
‘Well, Dauphin observers talked themselves into getting a set of Wednesday observations and reports out this week. It seems to be getting harder to sneak that 1 hour of observation in with so much happening. As an example, we are all geocachers and tonight there was a caching event for us which was hard not to miss being called “Long Live the Queen” as sort of a christening of our new Dairy Queen. This 1 hour event was from 8 to 9 PM. With our sunset being at 9:53 PM we barely had time to down our ice cream and get to our observation spots for our chimneys. So what to do, well we did some observation before the event and then some more after it.
We are happy to report that all 3 chimneys where reporting swift sightings but none had repeated in’s and out’s of any sort of set timing so we think we have nesting but still sitting on eggs. The reason we’ve said “some swifts think it’s still spring” is that we have birds flying around in pairs just chattering things up and even some “chevron” Vv flying about. Entries and exits were anywhere from a few minutes apart to over ½ hour duration either in the air or the chimney. There were some veer and peers but not consistent enough to indicate some internal chimney event was happening. We have not had any major “nest washing off the chimney walls” rainfalls but have had some unseasonably hot humid days.
By the end of the evening, there were at least 1-2 swifts in nesting chimneys and the roost had possibly 10-12 as we were not directly watching this chimney but could see birds approach it from our other observation stations.‘
Given the previous report from this location, all we can say is that the swifts were being as brilliantly baffling as ever, there being no large roost on that evening.
Finally in this section, what about our evening trip to Emerson?Frank, Jacquie, Lynnea and Tim took on the challenge, and this is what Tim sent in:
‘Emerson last night left everyone scratching heads. As befitting a Machovec road trip, a stop at Timmies was a necessity. Apart from the requisite Manitoba construction, we arrived in Emerson on roosting hour checking West Lynne which has a couple of likely chimneys. We decided to focus our efforts in the main town. Heading through Emerson, I directed us towards 3 buildings that were identified as potential habitat last fall.
Lynnea suddenly spotted a possible swift, there was a quick verbal exchange as I failed to find said swift, and then we leapt into action. Frank drove like a hero, turned the corner rapidly, and we could clearly see a pair above us. Success!
Ultimately, Frank and Jacquie watched the Masonic building, Lynnea a house and I took on an abandoned house. We each saw and heard swifts, Lynnea‘s max being 2 clearly identifiable pairs. It surely wouldn’t be too long before a swift took the plunge? The final swift sightings were around 9:20. After that, nothing! We have no idea where they are heading. Maybe West Lynne, but why spend so much time in Emerson? Maybe a tree? Maybe they popped over the border? Maybe we need to do more scouting the buildings! Who knows, but it is clear that a new plan is needed to work out this place and Neepawa.‘
