A Swift Night Out: Houston area events

Dates for 2008:  August 9 — Dayton and August 26 — Whole Foods Market/Pershing

Now available!: Swift Night Out T-shirts, featuring the poster artwork designed by Barbara Mills. The T-shirts will be on sale for $12 each during the Swift Night Out event on Aug 26. Available in adult M, L, XL, and children's L.
(T-shirt Design). Quantities are limited - to reserve a shirt, please call 713-640-2407.

The Bellaire event will start at 7:00 PM. We plan to have activities both at the Whole Foods Market parking lot and at Pershing Middle School at 3838 Blue Bonnet Blvd. Joining Houston Audubon in co-sponsoring the event are Whole Foods Market and the Nature Discovery Center at Russ Pitman Park. We will meet at the Whole Foods parking lot and after a brief orientation a small group will proceed to walk over to the northern parking lot of Pershing Middle School. We plan to count swifts at Whole Foods Market and Pershing. Look for directional signs as you enter the parking area off of Stella Link and Bellafontaine. An area will be roped off to provide safe viewing of the Chimney Swifts entering the ventilation pipe at Whole Foods Market. No experience is necessary. All ages are welcome!

Nationwide Swift Night Out

Dates for 2008: August 8,9, 10 and September 12, 13, 14

Sponsored by the Driftwood Wildlife Association, this is a nationwide event to help promote awareness of swifts. It is held annually in late summer. The procedure is very simple: find a large roost of Chimney Swifts and estimate the numbers that enter it in the evening. Dates for 2007: August 10-12; September 7-9. For more information and to see a map of last year's results, visit the Swift Night Out webpage.

Tips on Counting Swifts by Paul and Georgean Kyle: When counting Chimney Swifts at roosts, the numbers can become overwhelming -- especially as the numbers continue to climb as we move toward fall migration over the next few weeks. What we have found to work quite well is to use an athletic lap counter. These are available at most sporting goods stores. You can tally without taking your eyes off of the swifts.

When the numbers of swifts are relatively low, a direct count can be made -- one click per swift. At sites where the numbers exceed several hundred (or the entry rate is high), make one click per 10 swifts and multiply the end number of clicks by 10 for the total. It works really well if several counters can average their counts at the end.