Here's your chance to take part in a fun bit of citizen-science; this upcoming weekend, Friday-Saturday-Sunday, August 7-9 is MN Audubon's first annual Chimney Swift Count, with a follow-up to come in September. It takes as little as an hour, on just one of those nights of your choosing.
It's easy enough. Park yourself for the 30 minutes on either side of sunset (8:37 as of last night, a few minutes earlier by the weekend), with a clear view of any chimney or smokestack that's been seen to have the little "flying cigars" entering or exiting, or an area where the flock has been swirling to feed, if you have no other evidence. When the birds bed down for the night, they drop straight down into the chimney, and that's when to count. If you have partners, it helps to spread out a bit, to get different perspectives on the chimney; you can compare numbers and average afterwards, to report. For more information you can contact our co-ordinator, Ron Windingstad at [email protected], or to download participation forms go to http://mnaudubon.org/events/714. If you want explanatory brochures to satisfy curious onlookers or nervous neighbors, here's a link to a site with brochures you can download and print: https://mail.google.com/a/moosewoods.us/#inbox/122e0b5d9503d60c Good luck, and have fun! Linda Whyte ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
