Seeking Swifts
Featuring Larry Schwitters
San Francisco: Thursday September 20 – 7 pm refreshments, 7:30 program
Swifts at a chimney / Photo by Bill Lider
Launched five years ago, Vaux’s Happen-ing enlists volunteers to locate, observe, and gather data about communal roost sites used by Vaux’s Swifts in migration. Chim- neys have proved to be among the most significant sites. Vaux’s Happening quickly expanded into an effort to raise awareness of and try to preserve as many sites as pos- sible. Over the last 10 migrations, observers have documented nearly four million Vaux’s Swift roosting events from San Diego to the Yukon. Here in the immediate Bay Area, the swifts roost in a stack at the McNear brickyard in San Rafael. Larry Schwitters will talk about this ongoing citizen science project and share images captured by chimney surveillance cameras. He will also touch on his search for waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest that host nesting Black Swifts.
Larry Schwitters has spent 30 years in what he describes as “the trenches of public educa- tion,” mostly as a middle school science teacher and coach in the Seattle area. He now works on the Vaux’s Swift project year-round, an endeavor that is nearly full-time during migration. His website for the project (http://vauxhappening.org) includes information on the most active sites and the counts.
Free for GGAS members, $5 for non-members.
Location: First Unitarian Universalist Church and Center, 1187 Franklin Street at Geary. Visit www.uusf.org/visitors_faq.html, and use the Map It! link on the left for directions. Public transit, street parking, and parking in a lot for a fee are available.
