We have come to the end of another successful year for our SWIFTY boxes and our birds. Two big news items for this year…….
One, we officially became part of Seven Capes Bird Alliance, so no more giving Wally cash or checks. All contributions to our efforts will now go through Seven Capes. And a big thank you to all our supporters. We couldn't have accomplished the following without your help.
Male Purple Martin equipped with BluBird tag
Two, Swifty is one the first groups in the country to test the new BluBird tracker for birds, in our case Purple Martins (PUMAs). These tags are solar powered, weigh 200 milligrams and can generate hundreds of location points for our PUMAs traveling from Oregon to SE Brazil on migration. We installed tags on four of “our” birds in 2 locations (Waldport, North Fork Siuslaw). Of the four BluBirds that we funded, two failed or were perhaps lost at the outset. But two are working phenomenally. Finn (from the Siuslaw River north fork outside Florence) and Elise (from Eckmann Lake in Waldport), two birds that left Oregon four days apart in mid-August were detected a few miles from each other near Mazatlán, 1500 miles away, on August 27th. To catch up with Finn, Elise made the journey in 6 days, averaging 12 mph, including rest stops, feeding and roosting. Currently Finn and Elise are still in that area north of Mazatlán, gathering strength for the next push southwards. We also had two other PUMAs tagged with another technology (Motus). One has been detected at the Motus sites at Cape Perpetua and Hatfield Science Center. We know that the attrition rate is high for the birds and the tags; what are the chances that we will be able to track either Finn or Elise for the complete 16,000-mile round trip to Brazil and back?
Also, a big shout out and thanks to the 13 monitors of our boxes. Your help gives us the ability to learn more about these marvelous birds as they face the onslaught of climate change and other disruptions to their world.
Box Results
● Swallows: Like last year we are seeing over ¾ of our 164 boxes occupied. Most of our occupants are Tree Swallows (TRES), though this year we had high numbers of Chestnut-backed Chickadees (15 CBCH) and Violet-green Swallows (18 VGSW) nesting. Chick fledge rates for CBCHs and VGSWs were close to 100% while for TRESs they varied by region and were quite low in places. The Beaver Creek valley, where we have 50 boxes, had a 90+% fledge
success. On the other hand, Hatfield Science Center (17 boxes) had a 23% fledge rate, and Upper Yachats river valley (52 Boxes) had areas with chick survival rates as low as 36%.
● We attribute Hatfield chick deaths to the windy, cold marine environment at the site supporting less insects along with occasional rainy spells at critical times when parents are feeding hungry chicks. TRESs are particularly sensitive to these climate issues since they nest earlier than the VGSWs and Barn Swallows. Similar climate issues affect the Upper Yachats along with the fact that we have 52 boxes dispersed along a 5-mile stretch of the river, creating too much competition for food. For both the Upper Yachats and Hatfield we will be using fewer boxes next year and experimenting with opening boxes later in the spring to delay nesting.
● Purple Martins (PUMAs): We have 46 boxes at 9 locations. 20 of these boxes were designed to be easily taken down for the BluBird tracking project and these were monitored closely because we needed to know the stage of chick development for the critical small window in late July when we could install the BluBird tags. Of 37 boxes watched, 18 showed nesting attempts and we reported 2 known failures. Last year we estimated ⅓ of our boxes had successful nests. We believe that this same ratio holds true this year.
● Wood Ducks: We had better result this year with 3 successful clutches as opposed to 1 successful clutch last year in our 10 boxes. 2 clutches of Hooded Mergansers produced 19 successful fledglings. One clutch of Wood Ducks had 8 successful fledglings.
Overall, a momentous year as SWIFTY keeps breaking new ground! A snapshot:
• We are tracking two Purple Martins that are already in Mexico, ⅕ of the way to Brazil.
• Our bird boxes had a record 551 fledges, made up of 470 swallows and chickadees, 52 PUMAs and 29 ducklings.
• Bob published a heartwarming video, “Lucky and her Lucky Ducklings” See: https://youtu.be/gdkXbBp8EDg?is=dhj_4OzGaVfDU4GL
• We have a permanent home for SWIFTY in Seven Capes Bird Alliance.
Jim, Wally, Bob
September 10, 2026
