First of all, is Greg Flemming still on the list? If anyone knows his email
address, could you forward it to me?
I went back to a chimney that I found last year in Ft. Belvior in Fairfax
County that had a large group of swifts roosting in it. When I got there
around sunset there were no birds flying around the chimney (there should
have been hundreds). I noticed that swifts were all flying over the chimney
and heading in the same direction, so I got in the car and tried to follow
them. I eventually found them at the "Army Force Management Building"
(Bldg. 247) at the corner of 21st and Gaillard Rd.
There was a nice sized group of birds circling the chimney, but it didn't
seem as large as "it should be". I did my count and came up with 444 birds.
Not bad, but a far cry from the 1003 birds I had last year on 8/25/01 at the
original chimney.
I can only assume that something was done to the chimney to make it
unfriendly to the swifts. The sad irony is that last year, Greg Flemming,
the Ft. Belvior naturalist, was going to try to ensure that nothing happened
to the original chimney.
It's a real shame, because last year on 9/8/01 I counted 1626 swifts entering
the chimney. Now *that* was a sight! I don't know if that was a peak number
or the roost continued to grow because after 9/11 I never went back to Ft.
Belvoir.
Bart Hutchinson
Alexandria, VA
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