Swift Counts - Tuttle - 7, 8, 9 Sept. 2007 - Delaware Co., Ohio
E-Mail from Dick Tuttle:
Hello Everyone,
I must pose a question after I report the following observations:
On Friday and Saturday nights, I counted Chimney Swifts entering the brick chimney at the National Guard Armory in Delaware, Ohio.
The 7 September 2007 count was routine with temperatures in the high seventies under partly cloudy skies. Between 19:43 and 20:17, 720 swifts entered the chimney.
On 8 September, I had returned from a Fall Warbler Symposium held near Lake Erie to arrive at the parking lot at Tim Horton's Restaurant to watch the armory's chimney at 19:36. A heavy, steady rain was falling and since I saw no birds, I left to buy a newspaper. I returned at 19:44 to find that hundreds of swifts had arrived.
During a steady downpour with lightning, I sat in my idling car with the windshield wipers running and counted 233 swifts as they entered the chimney between 19:44 and 19:58. I estimate that an additional 100 birds circled the chimney, but left to roost elsewhere.
I stayed until 20:15 to make sure that no new birds showed up. The storm made for an early, dark night and it is possible that swifts entered before my arrival at 19:36.
On 9 September, I journeyed to the small village of Galena to count swifts entering the brick chimney there at the United Methodist Church. Three vehicles of watchers arrived to count ONLY SEVEN BIRDS entering the large chimney between 20:00 - 20:11. The temperature approached eighty degrees under partly cloudy skies.
Hundreds of swifts were in the area, however. Dick Phillips noticed that scores of birds were entering one of four brick chimneys at the same two-story home southwest of the church. After watching many swifts disappear into the chimney, he started counting to record an additional 189. Dick estimates that 300 or more swifts must have entered the chimney.
Why did swifts snub the popular church chimney? I offer the following hypothesis: Since the chimney shelters hundreds of swifts nightly, guano deposits must be rather deep there. Heavy rains during the previous several days and nights might have reacted with the guano to percolate ammonia from ammonium hydroxide, causing a gaseous micro environment that became intolerable to the birds. From experience, I know that ammonia's stench is common in American Kestrel nest boxes when nestlings are present. Also, research has revealed that when compared to other avian species, swifts have a keen sense of smell. How this hypothesis could be tested was the conversation between two retired science teachers before we went our separate ways.
Swift on, and keep your guano dry.
Dick Tuttle
Hello Everyone,
I must pose a question after I report the following observations:
On Friday and Saturday nights, I counted Chimney Swifts entering the brick chimney at the National Guard Armory in Delaware, Ohio.
The 7 September 2007 count was routine with temperatures in the high seventies under partly cloudy skies. Between 19:43 and 20:17, 720 swifts entered the chimney.
On 8 September, I had returned from a Fall Warbler Symposium held near Lake Erie to arrive at the parking lot at Tim Horton's Restaurant to watch the armory's chimney at 19:36. A heavy, steady rain was falling and since I saw no birds, I left to buy a newspaper. I returned at 19:44 to find that hundreds of swifts had arrived.
During a steady downpour with lightning, I sat in my idling car with the windshield wipers running and counted 233 swifts as they entered the chimney between 19:44 and 19:58. I estimate that an additional 100 birds circled the chimney, but left to roost elsewhere.
I stayed until 20:15 to make sure that no new birds showed up. The storm made for an early, dark night and it is possible that swifts entered before my arrival at 19:36.
On 9 September, I journeyed to the small village of Galena to count swifts entering the brick chimney there at the United Methodist Church. Three vehicles of watchers arrived to count ONLY SEVEN BIRDS entering the large chimney between 20:00 - 20:11. The temperature approached eighty degrees under partly cloudy skies.
Hundreds of swifts were in the area, however. Dick Phillips noticed that scores of birds were entering one of four brick chimneys at the same two-story home southwest of the church. After watching many swifts disappear into the chimney, he started counting to record an additional 189. Dick estimates that 300 or more swifts must have entered the chimney.
Why did swifts snub the popular church chimney? I offer the following hypothesis: Since the chimney shelters hundreds of swifts nightly, guano deposits must be rather deep there. Heavy rains during the previous several days and nights might have reacted with the guano to percolate ammonia from ammonium hydroxide, causing a gaseous micro environment that became intolerable to the birds. From experience, I know that ammonia's stench is common in American Kestrel nest boxes when nestlings are present. Also, research has revealed that when compared to other avian species, swifts have a keen sense of smell. How this hypothesis could be tested was the conversation between two retired science teachers before we went our separate ways.
Swift on, and keep your guano dry.
Dick Tuttle
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