Chapman Swifts with LOTS of commentary

Portland OR.
Once a year, a flock of thousands of Vaux Swifts come to visit chapman elementary school, swirling and flying into the chimney of the school nightly for a couple of weeks. Thousands of onlookers picnic and watch the swifts as they fly about.

Someone says, "Here we go!" Eyes turn skyward. Hundreds of swifts swirl like a funnel cloud over the Chapman chimney. They dive and skim close to the bricks, then climb and scatter like confetti. 7:35 p.m.: Rush hour. The swifts, about 4 inches long with wings that span close to a foot, begin to fall like leaves into the smokestack. Fifty. A hundred. A thousand. How to count? Somehow, volunteers with the Audubon Society of Portland's Swift Watch program -- swifties, as they're known -- do count and extrapolate and estimate. During the peak of the swifts' annual migration from the Pacific Northwest to wintering grounds in Central America and Venezuela, the swifties say, as many as 35,000 may roost together in the Chapman chimney, the largest known Vaux's swift roost in the world.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• mst3k
• chatty
• commetary
• portland

[kellykids]

Uh, could you guys have talked any more? Ha-ha, it's awesome.