Birding Friends:
I sent in the Vaux's Swift count of 435 birds that we saw fly into the
theater chimney in Enumclaw on Sept 8. We thought that was a huge number,
but it turns out swift counts can be much higher. Margaret Parkinson sent a
msg (below) about seeing the swifts in Portland. She had seen about 4500
birds on one night this year!
I got on the Portland Audubon website at www.audubonportland.org and
under events they talk about their swift watch. Turns out their count may
be as high as 40,000 on some nights and runs all month! Just a little
higher than our
count... It is a good website w/ a good explanation about swifts. It fact
it is very interesting. A thought is that the counts can be that large
because the chimney is very big. The Chapman School at 27th and NW
Pettygrove is active, and the students dress warmly so they don't have to
heat up the chimney until the swifts finally all leave. The school is
apparently located in the northern part of Portland.
When I sent in our count to the Swift Night Out people
www.concentric.net/~dwa
for their census, we learned that our count is in the low-to-mid range for
the counts they got
last year. That was the first year they did a census. Their highest count
last year was in Reading, PA w/ 5000 Chimney Swifts. Oddly enough no one
had submitted the
Portland, OR count. The only count they received from west of the Miss. was
a count of 9 from Tualtin, OR.
I know a family who lives near Redmond in a 20-yr-old house. They had
nesting swifts in their chimney this year. I wonder if we have other swift
sites in this area.
Carol Schulz
DesMoines
linusq at att.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Margaret Parkinson" <margparkie at attbi.com>
To: <linusq at worldnet.att.net>
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 11:13 AM
Subject: RE: Second Annual Swift Night Out Report


> The Vaux Swift show at Enumclaw sounds wonderful. I was in Portland
> last week and watch the "show" there for two nights. The Audubon people
> there counted 4500 the first night and there were more the second night.
> There is information about it on the Portland Audubon website. So,
> wonderful as the Enumclaw "show" was, a trip to Portland is well worth
> it. As I posted earlier, the "gathering" started about 6:30 and grew
> and grew until about 7:10pm. Then they started going in to the stack
> and it was as if someone was pouring them in from a huge jug. They
> continued going in for 45 minutes. Get down to Portland before they
> move on! It is worth it.
>
> Margaret Parkinson
> University District, Seattle
> mailto: margparkie at attbi.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
> [mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Lynn & Carol
> Schulz
> Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 9:40 PM
> To: Fred Boesche; Rainier Audubon; Tweets
> Subject: Second Annual Swift Night Out Report
>
> Birding Friends:
> My friend Adele and I watched a huge Vaux's Swift flock tonight as it
> came
> in to roost at a chimney in Enumclaw, WA. We counted 435 birds! Finally
at 6:35 we
> started
> seeing birds drop into the chimney. We trained our bins on the top of
> the
> chimney and counted 80 birds as they dropped in. Between then and 7:15
> we
> would watch and several more groups dropped in, including one huge group
> of
> 190 birds! Obviously we counted by tens. After 7:15 we thought the
> show
> was done, except for just a few birds. But they apparently found some
> more
> birds because another group of 54 came in and flew into the chimney at
> 7:30.
> After that there were a few stragglers, but it was dark and the swift
> show
> was over by 7:40. What a phenomenom this
> is,
> especially when the flock starts to swirl just above the chimney.
> I wonder where all of these birds find room to roost? This brick
> chimney is
> only about 30 feet tall, by 2 feet square. It is located in an old
> brick
> theater in which they still show movies. It's the Chalet Theater at
> 1721
> Wells St in Enumclaw. > I'll be sending our census count into the Second
Annual Swift Night Out
> website. I'll be interested to hear how our count measures up to some
> of
> the Chimney Swift counts back east and to the Vaux's Swift count in
> Portland.
> Carol Schulz
> DesMoines, WA
> linusq at att.net