Thousands of Vaux’s swifts descend on Monroe school

Published 2:22 pm Monday, September 13, 2010

MONROE — Neal Zimmerman paces on the lawn of Frank Wagner Elementary School. He occasionally looks to the sky, sometimes with binoculars.

He’s been here since 5 and will wait nearly three hours for sunset.

He’s come to count the Vaux’s swifts, small and agile birds that flock to the school’s chimney to roost. By day, the birds fly around the countryside, hunting for insects along the river. At night, thousands and thousands come for what is one of the great wonders of nature on the West Coast.

Around 7:30 p.m., the swifts start appearing from all sides of the school. They gather to form a dark cloud and hover around the 4-by-4 foot square and 60-foot-high chimney. All of a sudden, they pour into the chimney, a process that lasts more than 40 minutes.

“It’s a great spectacle,” Zimmerman, from Brier, said.

Zimmerman was not the only one admiring them this past Wednesday. By the end of the night, around 40 people sitting in lawn chairs and inside their cars witnessed the scene.

Frank Wagner Elementary is one of the few places in North America where such a large group of a single species congregates, said Larry Schwitters, project coordinator of the Audubon Vaux’s Happening, a community project based in Issaquah that locates the chimneys the birds use as roosts in the state.

“This is one of the last wildlife migrations left in the world and it’s coming to town,” Schwitters said.

Swifts are no larger than 5 inches long and are closely related to hummingbirds. They do not have a back talon so they cannot perch on trees. There are about 105 different species of swifts in the world, Schwitters said. They frequently use brick chimneys for shelter because it is easy for them to clutch rough surfaces.

People can witness this event tonight in what is being billed as the Swift Night Out at the school, 639 W. Main St., from 4 p.m. to dusk. There will be children’s activities and talks about the Vaux’s swifts, and spaghetti will be served for $5 a plate.

Zimmerman is a member of the Monroe Swift Watch, a group organizing the event. It is sponsored by the local Audubon societies, and agencies such as Monroe School District, the city of Monroe and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Monroe Swift Watch is a group of about 40 people. Some are biologists, but most are amateur bird watchers.

This is the third year the group has celebrated the Swift Night Out. Around 1,200 people attended last year, Zimmerman said.

Members of the Monroe Swifts group have been at the school every night since the middle of August trying to count birds and inform the community.

The peak of their migration usually occurs in mid-September. Thousands of swifts have been seen this week alone. The highest count of the year occurred Tuesday with 26,552 spotted. In total, 112,930 have been recorded since Aug. 12.

It is hard to know how long each swift stays in this roosting place and which ones are new, but it is believed they migrate in waves, Zimmerman said.

The school is special for the birds that have lost places to roost because of residential growth.

“They prefer hollow trees to roost, but there is not a natural site for them anymore,” said Diann MacRae, publicist for the Monroe Swifts group.

Swifts have been coming to the school for at least 40 years, MacRae said.

The school stopped using the chimney in 2003 when it changed its heating system. The chimney was considered an earthquake hazard because it was not reinforced. In 2006, the Pilchuck, Seattle and Eastside Audubon societies approached the district to make the chimney safer for children but preserve it for the birds, said Rosemary O’Neil, spokeswoman for the Monroe School District.

The district received a state grant that covered all expenses to reinforce the chimney this summer. The total amount of the project is about $85,000, O’Neil said.

The project was finished just in time for the first day of classes. As part of the project, the Audubon societies donated money to install two cameras to view the birds on the chimney’s surface and interior. The cameras can record up to four days of footage, and there have been talks to post it online on the state Department of Fish and Wildlife website, Schwitters said.

Schwitters plans to give a talk about the birds in the school’s auditorium at 6:30 tonight and will be available to answer questions about the birds.

The swifts spend most of their time flying, doing everything in the air including eating and mating. Some of species of swifts — not the ones that come to Monroe — sleep in the air, Schwitters said.

The birds are coming from the north but it is unknown where they are headed. Members of the Monroe Swifts believe they go to Central America. The swifts usually leave the region by mid-October and come back in April but in smaller numbers.

George Keefe of Edmonds was one of the many to watch Wednesday night. It was a record night; 14,293 birds were counted, the third-largest number this month.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s a must-come event.”

Alejandro Dominguez: 425-339-3422; adominguez@heraldnet.com.