PORTLAND, Ore. — For decades, Portlanders have been accustomed to the yearly sight of Vaux’s swifts swirling above the chimney at Chapman Elementary School, a punctuation on summer’s end. But after a shakeup in the migratory birds’ habits last year, the city waits to see where they’ll land now.
Vaux’s swifts typically rely on hollow trees to serve as roosting sites, and they migrate through the Portland area each fall. With a decline in forest habitation, they also use chimneys throughout the area to roost.
The Bird Alliance of Oregon counts the swifts that roost at Chapman every year. Their data from 2009 to 2022 shows a peak of 7,000 birds in mid-September. In 2023, the peak was 11,440 swifts at Chapman…