The White House: Swifts at Chapman Elementary

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Swifts at Chapman Elementary

So I am continually in awe of all the interesting little cultural events we keep finding ourselves in. Some friends informed us of this old little elementary school in Portland that has this large chimney where Vaux Swift birds come to roost during the month of September during the big migration for the season. Yeah, yeah - birds staying in chimneys - what's the big deal with that? Well - the fact that there are literally thousands of them swarming around in the air and then dive bombing into the chimney like a huge whirlwind tornado is actually pretty incredible to watch.

In awe...


Chapman Elementary - the bird's hotel. Please note Stephen and Ross on the left...this is how most of the event went down for them.

The whirlwind tornado!

The elementary school has been here since 1923 and I guess when the bird situation started happening in the 1980's, the staff let the students vote on whether to start up the heating system in the school - thus getting rid of all the birds, or to keep the heating off and the kids would all wear their coats during class. They voted every year to keep the heating off! Eventually they raised enough money to put in a different heating system and keep the chimney there solely for the birds. Crazy!

People all come gather on a big hill and field with picnic dinners and cardboard for the kids to slide down the hill on while they wait for the birds to settle in for the night. There are usually some hawks and falcons that wait for these little Swifts to come and they do some dinner hunting themselves. There's lots of cheering, oohing and awing during the whole thing. Oregon is just full of little treasures.

Ross was pretty much just interested in running away and would glance up at the birds every once in a while, but we were quite entertained anyway.