LCAS Program Tues 3/25/25: Our Amazing Swifts

WATCH on YouTube here.

Dick Lamster and Maeve Sowles present: “Our Amazing Swifts.”

The Lane County Audubon Society will feature a presentation about the thousands of little long-distance fliers who visit a local chimney each spring and fall.  Our own Dick Lamster and Maeve Sowles will discuss the fascinating life of the Vaux’s Swifts and the wonderful experience they provide to birdwatchers (new and old) who watch them roost in the Agate Hall Chimney at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene.

Vaux’s Swifts are somewhat difficult to watch as they often fly very high, hunting insects that are carried on winds above 1,000 feet in the sky. Because of this, many casual birders are not familiar with this species. They are small 4.3-inch birds with an 11-inch wingspan that hunt insects while flying all day and roost in dark chimneys or tree snags at night. If you do see one flying, it may pass by too quickly to be easily identified. Swifts are often confused with swallows, which they are not.

For decades Vaux’s Swifts have used the Agate Hall chimney, on UO campus at 17th Avenue and Agate Street, to roost for the night during their migration stopover in the Willamette Valley. They feed and recover here during their northward migration in spring as well as their southward migration in the fall. This phenomenon is a real-time nature extravaganza right here in Eugene! Vaux’s Swifts’ numbers can reach as high as 15,000 birds using the chimney for a night, or the number can be zero. When we go to count them, we have no idea what we will find.

The upcoming March Program will give more details about this fascinating species of birds, including:

• A range map extending from northern British Columbia to Venezuela
• Nest building and reproduction
• Predation by a variety of larger birds
• Habitat adaptations due to logging in most of their range
• History of Agate Hall chimney at UO campus

The Agate Hall chimney is now integral to the survival of this small bird, and we need to encourage protection of the chimney in perpetuity to provide migration habitat for the Vaux’s Swifts. People who experience the birds’ use of the chimney as a roost site for the first time are amazed and awed by this special in-town wildlife experience. It is a phenomenon the whole family can enjoy.

Maeve Sowles and Dick Lamster

Maeve and her mother would watch birds out the kitchen window when she was a child. She feels fortunate to have had a parent who valued the wonders of nature, curiosity, and education. When Maeve moved to Eugene in the early 1990s, one of her first activities was a Lane County Audubon bird walk where she met Eugene birders, including her husband, Dick. Maeve says “We found common ground in our birdwatching pastime. He was the first person that took me (and my visiting mother) to watch the Vaux’s Swifts at Agate Hall chimney and we have visited Agate Hall every year since, both spring and fall.” Maeve has now served as president of LCAS for more than two decades.

Dick has been watching birds since he was a child. He was a member of the Lane County Audubon Society’s first Board of Directors in the mid-1970s and served as President in the 1980s and early 1990s. He and Maeve have traveled the world together, looking for birds and other wildlife while enjoying local cultures. However, he still loves returning to Eugene and watching thousands of Vaux’s Swifts go down the chimney at Agate Hall.

Check back for the Zoom link.

The program meeting will be held at the Campbell Center.