Vaux’s Happening: 15 Million and Counting With Larry Schwitters, Swift expert
Organizer: Dungeness River Nature Center
Organizer Email: info@DungenessRiverCenter.org
Organizer Phone: 360-681-4076
Organizer Website: https://DungenessRiverCenter.org/
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Vaux’s Happening: 15 Million and Counting
Presented by Larry Schwitters, Swift expert
Saturday, March 18, 2023
6 p.m. to 8 p.m
Rainshadow Hall at Dungeness River Nature Center
In the fall, Vaux’s Swifts congregate in large groups as they migrate from Canada’s Yukon to Central America’s Guatemala. Roosting along the way in abundant hollow tree snags in old-growth forests, Swifts have been forced by clearcutting to find abandoned smokestacks and chimneys in which to rest overnight on their migration south.
Groups of roosting Swifts can range from just a few to as many as 35,000 entering through the top of a single roosting spot at dusk.
Larry Schwitters will share photographs and speak about Vaux’s Swifts and Audubon’s Vaux’s Happening Project which began in 2007. Studying Swifts for several decades, he was instrumental in saving a chimney that is one of only two well-known big-number Vaux’s Swift roost sites in all of Washington State.
The chimney he helped save, now recognized as a “Partners in Flight Important Bird Area of Global Significance,” quickly expanded into an attempt to locate, raise awareness of, and hopefully preserve the important roost sites used by this species all along their migratory path. The project has now documented over 200 roosting sites from the Yukon to Guatemala used by over 20 million swifts in the last 30 migrations.
Admission to the presentation is free. However, we suggest a donation of $5.00 per person to support our ongoing education programs.