2025 Monitoring Info & Event Recap
It’s official, the swifts are BACK! The first reported sightings were on May 6, in Winnipeg and in Souris. Since then, the reports have been steadily flowing in from all over the province! Thanks everyone for sending in your observations.
The official blog monitoring recaps will start next week. For now, here’s some info about the upcoming monitoring season, as well as a little recap of our season kick-off event that took place earlier this week.
Monitoring Info 2025
Datasheet & protocol: The datasheet and protocol for 2025 can be found on the Resources and Links page of our website. We now also have a French version of the datasheet and protocol – thank you to Luc Blanchette for translating them.
The protocol is where you will find full monitoring instructions, including start/end times, duration, safety information, instructions on how to fill out the datasheet, etc. In the protocol, we also go over the differences between roost hour monitoring and daytime nest monitoring, and what type of monitoring is best based on the time of year. Not much has changed from last year’s protocol, other than the dates (which I will mention again below).
Volunteer sign-up form: Please fill out the volunteer sign-up form for 2025 (for new and returning volunteers): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSccnVO2iqF8pDPz68pBJsEfNHnUung0HZ_dsMalcgg4TDIuzA/viewform
NRMP dates: The National Roost Survey (“NRMP”) dates are May 21, May 25, May 29, and June 2. If you are free to do a roost monitoring session on one or any of these nights, let us know. Otherwise, you can begin monitoring whenever works for you!
Monitoring blitzes: We will be holding monthly monitoring ‘blitzes’ throughout the season. The goal is to get a snapshot of what is going on at swift sites across the province, by monitoring as many sites as possible on a given night. Monitoring can be done during the day or during the roosting hour. The blitz dates are: June 18, July 16, August 19.
Resources: If you would like a volunteer lanyard, factsheets to hand out to the public, or any other monitoring resources, please let us know!
Priority sites: Every year we have a list of priority sites to monitor. These priority sites are chimneys that haven’t had confirmed use by swifts in a few years, so we want to reaffirm these sites as important Chimney Swift habitat. For these sites, the goal is to see an entry or an exit – once we’ve had a confirmed observation of a swift using that chimney, we can cross that site off our priority list. We will update the list on the blog every week. The list will be at the end of this blog post. Please note that the private residences don’t have the whole
Season kick-off event recap
On Wednesday, May 14th we held our second annual season kick-off event at Assiniboine Park. It was a lovely evening with a great turn out of around 30 people. Thank you everyone who came out! We spent the evening talking about swifts, eating, and visiting. A group of us ended off the evening with a swift watch at the Assiniboine Park Zoo tower, during which we saw 2 swifts enter the tower. A big thank you goes out to Assiniboine Park Conservancy for letting us use the space and for their help throughout the event. Thank you to Wild Birds Unlimited, Barb & Rob Stewart, Stephen Petersen, and Lewis Cocks for their generous door prize donations.
Can’t wait to see what the NRMP monitoring nights bring. As always, please contact us if you have any questions, comments, or would like to be matched with another site.
Wishing you all a lovely long weekend!
-Marissa
Priority site list (May 16)
| Community | Neighbourhood | Address | Site name |
| Carman | – | 2nd St | Private residence |
| Dauphin | – | 404 1st St. SW | St. Paul’s Anglican Church |
| Eriksdale | – | 16 Railway Avenue | St John’s Anglican Church/Eriksdale Museum |
| Melita | – | Veteran’s Way | Private residence |
| Morden | – | Private residence | |
| Pilot Mound | – | Railway St | Private residence |
| Souris | – | 5th Street W | Private residence |
| Souris | – | 2nd Street S | Private residence |
| St Jean Baptiste | – | 113 2nd Ave SW | Ecole Regionale Saint-Jean-Baptiste |
| Stonewall | – | 336 Main St | Prairie Zen Massage |
| Swan River | – | 518 Main Street | Commercial building |
| The Pas | – | 627 Cathedral Ave | Cathedral Apartments |
| Wasagaming | – | 106 Buffalo Drive | Dragonfly Delights Team Room |
| Winnipeg | Charleswood/Tuxedo/Westwood | Park Boulevard N | Private residence |
| Winnipeg | City Centre | 222 York Ave | Brink’s Canada |
| Winnipeg | City Centre | 222 York Ave | Brink’s Canada |
| Winnipeg | City Centre | 71 Kennedy St | Scarsdale Apartments |
| Winnipeg | City Centre | 100 Adelaide Street | Immigrant Centre Building |
| Winnipeg | City Centre | 91 Albert Street | The Old Market Autonomous Zone |
| Winnipeg | Daniel McIntyre | Canora St | Private residence |
| Winnipeg | Fort Garry | 1022 Pembina Highway | Cambridge Hotel |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 411 Stradbrook Ave | Lancaster Apartment |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 272 Cockburn Street | King George Court |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 141 River Avenue | Ludlow Court Apartments |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 280 River Avenue | Moxam Court |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 245 Bell Avenue | Children’s Education Funds Inc |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 834 Grosvenor | Eugene Apartments |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge | 444 River Ave | Augustine United Church |
| Winnipeg | Fort Rouge/East Fort Garry | Balmoral St | Private residence |
| Winnipeg | North Kildonan | 25 Valhalla Drive | Valhalla Gardens |
| Winnipeg | Point Douglas | 442 William Avenue | Filcasa Housing Coop |
| Winnipeg | River Heights | 465A Lanark St | Lanark Gardens |
| Winnipeg | River Heights | 465D Lanark St | Lanark Gardens |
| Winnipeg | River Heights/Fort Garry | 394 Academy Road | Academy Uptown Lanes |
| Winnipeg | River Heights/Fort Garry | Dorchester Ave | Private residence |
| Winnipeg | River Heights/Fort Garry | Kylemore Ave | Private residence |
| Winnipeg | St Boniface | 780 Elizabeth Road | Arundel Apartments |
| Winnipeg | St Boniface | 223 Archibald Street | Archibald Storage, large chimney |
| Winnipeg | St Boniface | 865 Tache Ave. | Civic Roofing |
| Winnipeg | St Boniface | 99 Birchdale Avenue | Nordale School |
| Winnipeg | St James | 2285 Portage Avenue | Foodfare, St James |
| Winnipeg | St James | 2415 Portage Avenue | Essex House, pest cage |
| Winnipeg | St Vital | 185 Fernwood Ave | St Vital – Niakwa Manor |
| Winnipeg | Transcona | 1305 Winona Street | Transcona Collegiate |
| Winnipeg | West Broadway | 39 Balmoral Street | Apartment |
| Winnipeg | West End | 318 Home St | Mennonite Church |
| Winnipeg | West Kildonan | 187 Kilbride Avenue | Kildonan United Church |
| Winnipeg | West Kildonan | 31 McBeth St | McBeth House (B) East chimney (centre) |
| Winnipeg | West Kildonan | 31 McBeth St | McBeth House (C) South chimney (right) |
View the Priority Sites list as a pdf
