SWIFTY Activities & Results 2025
We have come to the end of another successful year for our SWIFTY boxes and birds. This year we ran successful projects with two groups: 4H members from Waldport built and helped install swallow boxes at the Tami Wagner Elk Refuge, and students with special needs from Newport High School built boxes for Purple Martins that we installed on pilings on the Siletz River.
Species Summaries
Swallows: Similar to last year, we saw over 65% of our boxes occupied. We continue to have high chick mortality (35-50%) at a couple of project sites, compared to less than 10% at the rest. At Hatfield Marine Science Center, we speculate that the June 21 storm that brought cold and rain was a major contributor to chick deaths. Other stressors, including wind and a drier climate that make it more difficult for the swallows to find and deliver food to their young, may have contributed to the high mortality rate. Similar climate issues affect the Upper Yachats River Valley; in addition, we have 50 boxes along a five-mile stretch of the river, perhaps creating too much competition for food.
Purple Martins (PUMAs): We added 12 new PUMA boxes on the Siletz River, bringing the total number of boxes we’re monitoring to 41 at seven different sites in Lincoln County. In line with last year’s results, we estimated that one-third of our boxes had nesting pairs. We now have an excess capacity of boxes for the local population in the three main river valleys (Siletz, Yaquina, and Alsea) where we work. One exciting highlight is that our new colony on the Salmon River (two years old) has been a smashing success: this year, we saw three of the four boxes occupied, and we will add more for the 2026 nesting season.
Wood Ducks: Results were disappointing, with only one successful clutch in our ten boxes. However, we did have one box with abandoned eggs. We speculate that the ducks didn't like the change in bedding from pine shavings to bark. We also believe several of our boxes need better locations.
Future Plans
Next year, in addition to continuing our work with the Newport High School students building boxes, we have a new PUMA project with the McKenzie River Trust on the North Fork of the Siuslaw River. Excitingly, we have also been contacted by Dr. Sarah Rockwell, head researcher of the PUMA Conservation Project, who would like to use some of our PUMAs in her work. This work may involve banding the birds and/or attaching GPS backpacks to track their migration. Her past research has shown that coastal Oregon PUMAs migrate 8,000 miles to southeast Brazil for winter. Perhaps, in a couple of years, we will have a SWIFTY Purple Martin return with a recorded flight path for us to marvel over!
Sincere Thanks
We’d like to give a shout out to all of the SWIFTY volunteers for the work you have done for birds and wildlife! Yachats is about to be designated a “Bird City,” a nationwide effort by the National Audubon Society to reward cities for their efforts to support healthy bird habitat. This designation represents our community’s collective effort and commitment to protect the wonderful natural world we inhabit on the Oregon Coast. Bravo all!
Purple Martin, photo courtesy of SWIFTY
SWIFTY Activities & Results 2024
Purple Martins, photo courtesy of SWIFTY
We concluded another successful year for our SWIFTY nest boxes, with an estimated several hundred boxes in the field. This year we added more than 130 boxes, the bulk constructed in workshops with Lincoln County Parks (swallows) and with Erick Horvath (Purple Martins). We monitored over 200 boxes this year. For our core group, we estimated over 400 hours of volunteer time! Highlights of SWIFTY’s 2024 season include:
Swallows: At most of our project locations, about 75% of our boxes have successful clutches. With the 163 swallow boxes we monitor, this represents over 500 successful fledglings!
Purple Martins (PUMAs): We started four new colonies (four to five boxes at each site), with two on the Alsea River and one each on the Salmon and Siletz Rivers. All had at least one successful clutch. Our two older sites also saw successful nesting attempts.
Wood Ducks: With ten boxes in the field, we are beginning to refine what we think Wood Ducks require for box location. Besides being near to water, they also need to be close to or in wooded cover.
Raptors: We built our first American Kestrel boxes this year and rebuilt the platform for the Osprey pole at the Yachats Community Park.
Public Outreach: We brought Dr. Sara Rockwell, head researcher of the PUMA Conservation Project, to Yachats and learned that our Oregon coast birds migrate to winter in southeastern Brazil--8000 miles away!
Purple Martins, photo courtesy of SWIFTY
Why is our work important? Swallows are migratory birds. Before human impact on the climate, migratory birds were favored over non-migratory birds as they could adapt more easily to climatic changes. However, because the climate is changing so fast, migratory birds are at higher risk due to drought, more intense storms, fires, and diminished food sources taking place within generations. Every nest box counts!
SWIFTY Activities & Results 2023
Swallows are on the move. We are seeing gulps (groups of 100 or more) catching their breath and feeding as they head south. Wally and Jim were lucky to catch a gulp at the Little Red Coop at the 5-mile mark of Yachats River Road on a recent morning at 8:30 a.m. Vocal Violet Green Swallows were feeding over the Coop’s Pasture. Who knows where they will end their migration; for the majority, their final destination will be either Central or South America.
So how did SWIFTY do in 2023? Our count for fledges (Tree and Violet Green) was 391 juveniles from 131 boxes. Was this a good year? Well, we haven’t been doing this long (two years of previous data). SWIFTY felt the results fell between 2021—when during the June heat dome we saw great losses due to abandoned nests and dead young—and 2022, which was seemingly better.
We did have losses with 81 dead nestlings, so our survival rate for chicks was 83%. We attributed some of these losses to a very dry summer, which limits the number of aerial insects. Adults also could have died and left the chicks unattended. Not surprisingly, when we could correlate better food supply in areas where we had boxes, there was greater nesting success. One example was instructive. Last spring, we got a call from Lincoln County Parks, which asked for three boxes for Moonshine Park to attract swallows for mosquito/bug control. Close to the park they were putting shrimp waste on fields. These three boxes each had two broods and no loss of chicks or eggs. Nowhere else did we see a box producing two broods, something more common in better food supply years.
Other SWIFTY results included clutches in two of the three Wood Duck boxes, successfully fledging seven ducklings. And two of our three Purple Martin (PUMA) poles had nesting pairs. Over the summer, SWIFTY hooked up with Eric Horvath, who put up PUMA boxes 25 years ago on pilings on the three major rivers in Lincoln County. With Eric, we initiated a count of the PUMA population in the County. We are completing that survey now (current estimate of 142 mating pairs) and will publish the results in Oregon Birding later this fall.
Plans for next year are already beginning to shape up. Given our success at Moonshine, Lincoln County Parks has asked us to look at all 17 of their parks for opportunities for both swallow and Purple Martin boxes. As part of our effort with Eric Horvath, SWIFTY is going to add and refurbish PUMA boxes along the Siletz, Yaquina, and Alsea Rivers. This could mean as many as 50 new nesting boxes or tubes.
The SWIFTY Team: Jim, Wally, Bob, Cathy, and Robert
