Hundreds flock to Monroe to watch migrating birds

MONROE — They arrive each evening on the wing — and on foot, with cameras, binoculars, picnic blankets and awe.

Thousands of Vaux's swifts, and the people who have come to love them, are converging each evening at a chimney of an elementary school in Monroe, as one of the great migrations of the season progresses.

By the tens of thousands, Vaux's (pronounced "voxes") swifts are making their way from southeast Alaska, Canada and the Pacific Northwest to Mexico, Central America and Venezuela, stopping along the way. The birds — about the size of a small swallow — gather in great wheeling flocks each evening at sunset at their communal roosts, long established at about 50-mile intervals on their flyway.

The roost at Monroe is thought to be the third largest in North America, drawing birds by the thousands each evening. The ritual of their sunset cruise in great counterclockwise gyres above the chimney has drawn admirers of every age to the lawn at Frank Wagner Elementary School to watch a nightly spectacle of nature, right in the middle of suburbia.

More than 700 people turned out for Monroe Swift Night Out on a recent Saturday, according to organizers of the event, led by local Audubon chapters.

Crowds of 70 to 100 people continue to gather each evening to enjoy the birds and watch for the moment when, at some mysterious signal, the birds all at once funnel like smoke running in reverse down the chimney, turning in a flash to drop down backward without ever colliding.

"We'd been hearing about it, and we saw everyone lining up to look and thought, we can't be missing it this time," said Jeri Porcaro, who brought her four children to watch one evening last week. Eyes up, necks craned, they watched with wonder as the sunset light gilded the bellies of the birds wheeling and turning overheard.

The late-summer air was warm and soft, and the calls of the swifts clear and sweet, even above the busy traffic of Monroe, northeast of Seattle.

The birds arrive to roost every evening about a half-hour to an hour before sunset. They are expected to remain in the area in large numbers until about Sunday, more or less, depending on the weather. After that, numbers will decline, and the swifts will be gone by early October until the spring migration.

Just how many birds use the chimney, how many are repeaters staying over, and how many arriving from the north and moving on the next day, isn't known.

But volunteers counting the birds each day have reported huge flocks nightly, up to 21,000 strong during a peak of the spring migration in May. More than 4,000 birds were estimated to be zipping into the chimney for the night one evening last week.

Once inside the chimney, they snug together tight as overlapping shingles to share body warmth as they doze through the night.

Volunteer docents are also on hand most nights to answer questions from onlookers.

The birds like to use the hollows of old-growth trees for their roosts. But with big trees more scarce, the birds have adapted, using brick chimneys instead. They require roosts with an opening at least a foot wide.

They can't perch on a branch, either, because swifts lack the necessary back toe for gripping. Instead, they cling with their front claws and need a rough surface to grab onto, such as the inside of a tree — or brick chimney. They spend most of their waking hours aloft, hunting and eating insects and even mating on the wing.

No one knows how long the swifts have been using the Monroe chimney. But now that the birds are using it in such large numbers, a move is afoot to ensure the safety of the 1930s-vintage chimney, which the district is worried wouldn't hold up in an earthquake.

Meanwhile, teachers at the school have seized the opportunity for instruction, using the birds to teach their kids everything from how to count, to geography lessons to map the migration, to natural history, art projects and more.

And people keep arriving from as far away as North Carolina to see the birds, who have a strong following of fans at the school, and in the community.

"We called ourselves the Swifties," said Robin Fitch, principal of the school.

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com