VAUX”S HAPPENING SPRING 2008
Project Description

THE NEED

The Vaux’s Swift nests only in Western North America in areas of habitat that have been continually under siege from timber interests and developers. It takes little imagination to consider these birds a migrating indicator species for the Pacific Northwest forests, sort of a tiny, social, neo-tropic Spotted Owl.

Yet this is a poorly understood and little studied creature. The fear is that Vaux’s Swift could be in serious decline, but there are few numbers from which to draw conclusions. Here is an Audubon-Tweeters opportunity to lead a valuable, coordinated, large-scale citizen science project.

GOALS

These goals (printed blue) were presented to select Audubon members and posted on the Washington State birders internet list serve, “Tweeters”, early April 2008.

How close the project came to meeting these goals is printed in black. 

1. “Common knowledge” has been that the communal roosting for migrating Vaux’s Swifts is a fall phenomenon, but is this really the case? Why wouldn’t they also do this when migrating northward? A number of our locations were documented in the spring and the Wagoner Elementary School is known to host the birds twice a year. Numbers should be smaller in the spring. Let’s find out.

Vaux’s Swift communal roosting is NOT just a southbound event. 183,000 bird-chimney events leave no doubt about that. We will not know if the numbers increase in southbound migration until that event occurs, and only then if we are able to summon a similar effort. Oregon’s SwiftWatch 2000 is the only study that could be used for comparison. This Willamette Valley study visually bagged 320,000 swifts heading south. That figures out to 60% and a good share of the Oregon birds will go no farther than Oregon.

The southbound migration has been documented for half a century. Being such a high visibility event, one is at a loss to explain why communal roosting during northbound migration has been written off.

The weather we had in Washington State in spring 2008 was a long way from normal. Perhaps our count was a reflection of that. Still, the highest single day count ever at a Washington State chimney before this year was 4,000.

Our best single site, one evening count was 21,000, which matches the highest SwiftWatch 2000 one-day count of the huge, world champion, Chapman Elementary School. Vaux’s Happening observers counted more than 4000 birds, which was the old record, 14 times at three different sites.

How many more swifts could we expect come September 2008? If 90,000 Vaux’s pairs each successfully raise six young this summer, 2 become 8, and 180,000 become 720,000. While the math is correct, the natural world is not that generous. Life is often a very short and violent experience for baby birds. Past research indicates that the numbers are more likely to be a 20-60% increase. 

2. Audubon has a list of 33 known historical migration sites in the state. How many of these are still in use? In a few cases, do they even still exist? Lets find out.

Before the birds even made it across the Columbia River we had determined that 7 of the sites were actually “not exist” sites. The project coordinator believed he had all of the remaining sites, except two, covered. One of those wasn’t even a chimney, but a tree in the Olympia Peninsula’s Colonel Bob Wilderness. An effort was made to convince some GPS packing Tweeter to confirm its existence, but the “I wills” turned into “I didn’t goes”.

The other site was a house south of Yakima that the project coordinator misplaced the address. We have that address now, and should be able to check that site out in September.

After the last bird left (actually there are still some swifts using at least one site in July) it was discovered that two Bellingham sites had fallen through the cracks, and Entiat didn’t get checked. Of the remaining 21 historic sites that were observed at least once, 15 were positive. None of the 6 negative sites were large brick chimneys. 

3. There must be additional sites. The prime real estate for these migrating birds is huge brick chimneys. These are easy for both bird and man to locate. If the monster chimneys in the state are documented and staked out, might we discover sites that are a greater spectacle than Wagoner? Lets find out. 

As spring swifting season approached, the project coordinator tweetered a list of eleven “Big Stacks” that he had put together, and encouraged the list toids to add to it. A week of coordinator phone calls and reasoning quickly cut the list of eleven down to just two. Five more big stacks were then identified and three more would be “discovered” after the project began. Nine of these ten big stacks were observed at least once, and none of them hosted Vaux’s. This is more puzzling than disappointing.

Two new productive sites were discovered. The first was rather bizarre. Audubon Education Chair Paulette Hunter, who had been driving to Monroe to count, noticed swifts entering her Mukileto neighbor’s chimney. 

The second discovery was a real Vaux’s treasure chest. The coordinator found just eighteen miles from his residence, what proved to be the second most productive roost site in the state.

4. The more observers involved, the more comprehensive and valuable the project will be. Too many observers is not a concern. Can we get hundreds involved? Let’s find out.

Hundreds? Not this time.

The majority of our 70 Vaux’s Happening volunteer observers were Audubon members and interested Monroe citizens. P.A.W.S and fish and wildlife personnel made up the majority of the minority. 

The Tweeters birding community did come through with site information. Our web site lists those that did contribute in this manner, and thank you. Maybe come September we will can send out hundreds of observers.

5. If enough observers could be found, each location should be watched every night from when they are first observed until the last bird has moved on. For starters, let’s consider the last week of April through the first week of May. 

The swifts failed to follow this timing. Perhaps the cool spring had some influence. The first swift apperance was confirmed by the Wagner School Principal on April 21. The first thousand plus count was April 28, the last May 23. Hundreds were roosting into the second week in June. Some of the site observations ended as directed, and probably missed half the birds. But three high number roost sites carried on until the last fat bird sang. This enabled Vaux’s Happening to acquire what is most likely the longest continual census of the species ever taken migration.


6. The spring migration census will be good practice for the fall. 2008 could/should be the first year of an ongoing twice-yearly event.

Spring migration 08 ended up being a lot more than practice. There have been a lot of very positive comments about what we are doing. Interest and motivation is high for a fall count. 

7. Think big. The project could come to involve California, Oregon and Canada.

There has been some work on this very thing. Canada doesn’t look good but, who needs em, eh? We had a sliver of Idaho involved this spring, and that small part of the potato state is committed to the southbound count. The project coordinator has made some good contacts in Oregon, and there is definite interest. California needs a lot of work.

Border to border tracking of Vaux’s Swift migration, twice a year as long as the grass grows and the wind does blow? Vaux’s Happening has been a great start. 

Audubon holds the keys to the future. 




Goals

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