Rolan, Jennifer, and Tweets,

They are indeed Vaux's Swifts and I think the flock usually peaks over ten thousand or so. Chapman School is at 27th and NW Pettygrove and anytime from around 6:30pm until dusk is good to see them. It is definitely a spectacle to see and Chapman is a great place to view it with a grassy hillside to sit on and view of the northern part of the city and no problems with public access.

Ed Schulz
Everett, WA
-----Original Message-----
From: Rolan Nelson <rnbuffle at yahoo.com>
To: JLScott53 at aol.com <JLScott53 at aol.com>; tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, August 30, 2002 1:46 PM
Subject: Re: Portland Swifts


Jennifer,

Welcome to Tweeters! That's a pretty good "first time" post. Let us all know where in Portland the chimneys were so that others can go see it! Lots of us travel back and forth between the here and Portland, and I'd venture a guess that a lot of Tweeters live down there. I'm gonna guess Vaux's Swifts from your description.

-Rolan

JLScott53 at aol.com wrote:

Hello, I'm new to Tweeters (you may remember my request for info for an article I was writing a few weeks ago) and only a casual birder, so please forgive me if this isn't the right sort of thing to post here, but I just saw an amazing bird event I wanted to share. I'm visiting my sister in Portland, OR, and last evening she took me to see the Swifts at the Chapman School, where they stop on their southward migration. Wow!! Maybe this is old news to others, but I had certainly never seen anything like it -- over 1,000 swifts swarming and then funneling into an abandoned chimneystack at dusk. A local expert informed me the numbers will peak in a week or two.

Jennifer Scott
Bainbridge Island, WA (but tuning in from Portland)


Rolan Nelson
Burley, WA
rnbuffle at yahoo.com




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