Vaux’s swifts return to UO campus, even as they quit other Oregon spots 

An annual migration of thousands of chittering beasts has descended upon the University of Oregon campus. No, the students aren’t back yet. But the thousands of Vaux’s swifts who roost in the chimney of Agate Hall are.

The swifts stop in Oregon during their fall migration, before heading south to Central and South America. For decades, they roosted in different specific chimneys across the state, for instance, Chapman Elementary School in Portland, and the Clay Place in Roseburg’s Fir Grove Park.

But in recent years, the swifts have left those roosting grounds behind for new locations, according to reporting in The Oregonian and KLCC. Explanations for the change in habits vary, from human disturbances like changes to the chimney itself or the use of drones, to increases in predators, like Cooper’s hawks that prey on roosting swifts.

For now, though, the swifts have decided that the Agate Hall chimney is up to avian standards.

Maeve Sowles, president of the Coast to Cascades Bird Alliance, said the first time alliance members came to see the swifts roost this year, they estimated 3,555 birds flew into the chimney. The following week, she said, more than 5,000 streamed in.

Sowles said there is no usual number of birds to expect in a given year, though this year’s warm September weather has been fruitful for swift sightings. Conditions can be fickle: Around a decade ago, fires in British Columbia meant that Sowles and the alliance didn’t see a single swift that year. 

“Almost every time you go is different,” Sowles said. “We have no clue what’s going to happen.”

Tuesday evening with the swifts

The parking lot at 17th Avenue and Agate Street is the prime spot to watch the swifts begin their swirling aerial dance before they start roosting in the chimney, filling the sky with thousands of specks that only visibly become birds as they fly closer to earth. Vaux’s swifts like to stay lofty, said Sowles, where they can catch insects and spiders, invisible to the human eye, floating along air currents. 

Before the swifts begin circling the chimney, birders can look straight up to see thousands of swifts fill their field of vision, like an ashy snowfall. Once a critical mass of birds is present, the real event begins.

At 7:35 p.m. Tuesday, the swifts began their bedtime routine. They had a healthy audience of humans, some sitting in lawn chairs, some wielding binoculars.

“They’re going in,” someone excitedly announced as the swifts started rapidly streaming in, like dust sucked up by a vacuum. “Show time,” another man in the crowd noted.

Whirling, diving, flitting, flapping, a massive cylinder of birds filled the air above the chimney. 

“It’s like a tornado,” said 9-year-old Luke Martinez, providing play-by-play commentary as he watched the birds with his grandmother, Dolly Garza.

Garza brought her daughter to see the swifts years ago, and decided to bring her grandson out to see them this year. “I don’t think it ever gets old,” she said.

The birds swirled in tighter and tighter circles as more broke off from the mass to roost, an aerial show that dwindled down to its final stragglers around 15 minutes later. Then, the swifts, snug tight against the walls of their chimney bed, slept.