"Chapman School Chimney and Vaux Swifts" Top 5 Page for this destination Portland Off The Beaten Path Tip by glabah

Before the "civilization" of Oregon, Vaux swifts (tiny birds that feed mostly on insects) mostly inhabited hollow trees or other such natural cavities. With the coming of civilization, they soon discovered brick chimneys as a nice substitute for the nearly disappeared old growth forest trees.

Old industrial and commercial brick chimneys were particularly good, and so as time went on some 35,000 Vaux swifts came to call Chapman School's heating plant chimney home. It is thought this is the world's largest colony.

In 2001, a fund raising effort resulted in Chapman school getting a new heating plant, and thus they no longer had to worry about becoming frozen during the months that the swifts are here, and the Chapman chimney became a permanent wildlife preserve of sorts.

After swifts are done nesting and raising their juveniles, they congregate in large migratory flocks. This generally happens in September, and thus the best month to try to see the swifts is September. By mid-October or so, the swifts are gone.

I have put a video taken on the evening of September 19, 2008 on virtualtourist so that you can get a small impression of the sight. The stream going into the chimney lasts about 30 minutes, and there is a huge crowd gathered to watch, with some of the children passing the time by sliding down the hill on cardboard "sleds". (see photo 3 for a picture of the crowd on hand on Sept 19)

Bring a telephoto lens if you want to get good photos of the birds! The reason there are no photos of the birds going into the chimney is that they don't show up very well on the camera unless you have some way to zoom in on them.