Vaux’s swifts get ready to spend the night Friday in this chimney above an Albany alley.
For years I’ve heard of flocks of little birds called Vaux’s swifts roosting overnight in Albany chimneys on their migration south for the fall. On Friday night I saw them in action for the first time.
A reader alerted me that flocks of Vaux’s swifts were spending nights in a chimney downtown. Sure enough, there they were on Friday night. They circled the chimney high in the sky for what seemed like a long time. Then they bunched up in groups and dove in as the sun went down.
This chimney is on the southeast corner of the historic Bikman Building, on an alley between Ellsworth and Lyon streets. A few feet away there’s another chimney, and I think I saw a few of the swifts go there.
You can find lots of stuff about Vaux’s swifts online. Among other things there’s proper pronunciation of Vaux’s. It is “vawks’s.”
The birds use hollow logs and similar lodgings, such as chimneys, to spend the nights on their migrations. One such chimney was at the old Fire Station 11 downtown, so when that structure was torn down for the new station, the Audubon Society of Corvallis and Albany Parks in 2016 built a 30-foot tower near Swanson Park instead.
The tower wasn’t used that or the following fall, and I haven’t checked whether it has attracted swifts since.
What I didn’t see online was information on whether the migrating flocks stay in one place for one night only before moving on. If so, sightings at the downtown chimney on two or more evenings in a row would mean you are always seeing the next flight on the migration route.
Here are more images from Friday night, followed by two videos. The first video has me wondering for nearly five minutes whether the birds were coming, followed by the payoff in video number 2. (hh)
Watching the swift show is more convenient if you bring your own chair, as these three did.
Spectators at the swift spectacle are, from left, Britt Abblitt, Olivia Johnson and Laura Fredenhagen
A Swift Show in Albany (not THAT Swift)
Vaux’s swifts get ready to spend the night Friday in this chimney above an Albany alley.
For years I’ve heard of flocks of little birds called Vaux’s swifts roosting overnight in Albany chimneys on their migration south for the fall. On Friday night I saw them in action for the first time.
A reader alerted me that flocks of Vaux’s swifts were spending nights in a chimney downtown. Sure enough, there they were on Friday night. They circled the chimney high in the sky for what seemed like a long time. Then they bunched up in groups and dove in as the sun went down.
This chimney is on the southeast corner of the historic Bikman Building, on an alley between Ellsworth and Lyon streets. A few feet away there’s another chimney, and I think I saw a few of the swifts go there.
You can find lots of stuff about Vaux’s swifts online. Among other things there’s proper pronunciation of Vaux’s. It is “vawks’s.”
The birds use hollow logs and similar lodgings, such as chimneys, to spend the nights on their migrations. One such chimney was at the old Fire Station 11 downtown, so when that structure was torn down for the new station, the Audubon Society of Corvallis and Albany Parks in 2016 built a 30-foot tower near Swanson Park instead.
The tower wasn’t used that or the following fall, and I haven’t checked whether it has attracted swifts since.
What I didn’t see online was information on whether the migrating flocks stay in one place for one night only before moving on. If so, sightings at the downtown chimney on two or more evenings in a row would mean you are always seeing the next flight on the migration route.
Here are more images from Friday night, followed by two videos. The first video has me wondering for nearly five minutes whether the birds were coming, followed by the payoff in video number 2. (hh)
Watching the swift show is more convenient if you bring your own chair, as these three did.
Spectators at the swift spectacle are, from left, Britt Abblitt, Olivia Johnson and Laura Fredenhagen
Tags: chimneys, downtown alley, migrating birds, Vaux's swifts