2025 Swift Champions
Before we get too far into the 2026 Season, we still need to announce our 2025 Swift Champions! Every year, we award five Swift Champions awards to individuals or groups who go above and beyond for the Chimney Swifts in Manitoba. This year’s recipients of Swift Champion Awards were Pat Start, Ron Bazin, Marissa Berard, the Manitoba Metis Federation, and the Selkirk Mental Health Centre.
Pat Start
Nominated by her fellow Dauphin monitor Ken Wainwright, Pat has been a longtime volunteer with MCSI. In 2021, Pat discovered a new site in Dauphin, following Chimney Swifts flying and calling overhead and eventually seeing them drop into the chimney of the Hong Kong Cafe on Main Street! Since then, our Dauphin volunteers, including Pat, have monitored four successful nesting attempts at the site. Pat is a core member of our volunteer base in Dauphin, and we couldn’t be happier to recognize her years of work with a Swift Champion award!
Ron Bazin
Ron’s Swift Champion Award feels long overdue, as he’s been with MCSI since the very beginning. Ron joined the MCSI Steering Committee as a founding member in 2007 and has remained a valued member of the Committee ever since. Before his retirement last year, Ron worked for Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service, where he was a member of the federal CHSW Recovery Team. Representing ECCC-CWS on the MCSI Committee, Ron kept MCSI informed of federal recovery strategies, such as the development of the Recovery Strategy for the Chimney Swift, identification of critical habitat, descriptions of Chimney Swift residences, the identification of priority sites for monitoring, and more. Although he retired from ECCC-CWS last year, Ron remains an active member of the Steering Committee and an active monitor with MCSI. Thank you Ron, for your huge contributions to Chimney Swift conservation and recovery in Manitoba.
Manitoba Métis Federation
Up next is the Manitoba Métis Federation! The MMF and MCSI have been collaborating for several years, working to help the MMF get their own Chimney Swift monitoring program up and running. Marissa worked with MMF staff and citizens in 2024 to host a webinar and monitoring workshop to teach folks about Chimney Swifts and how we monitor them. Later that year, the MMF worked with MCSI to make plans for monitoring a newartificial tower at the former Roxy Lanes building on Henderson Highway in Winnipeg. The MMF decided to move forward withdemolishing the old building after purchasing it in 2022, and they had an artificial tower built as mitigation for the lost habitat. MMF staff closely monitored the site every week throughout 2025, and thanks to their observations we were able to confirm that the new tower was used successfully by a nesting pair! The fledglings weren’t observed by monitors, but during the end of season cleanout they found five hatched eggs! A successful first season indeed. As recognition of their diligent monitoring efforts in 2025 (and already in 2026), we’re very pleased to award the Manitoba Métis Federation with a Swift Champions Award.
Selkirk Mental Health Centre
For many years, this site has been discussed as a potential recipient for the award – and we’vefinally done it! The Selkirk Mental Health Centre (SMHC) is one of the most consistently active swift sites in the province, hosting four purpose-built towers and three additional chimneys. The artificial towers were constructed as a mitigation strategy in response to the demolition of a large chimney stack in 2018. Since they were built, all of the towers have seen steady nesting success, with at least one tower (but often more!) producing successful fledglings each year. Towers aside, two out of three other chimneys onsite have been consistently used for roosting, nesting, or both. Strangely, one chimney – the west chimney on the Infirmary Building – never had any activity… until one evening in 2024. On NRMP Night 2, over 50 swifts suddenly decided it would make a fantastic roosting site! Interestingly, it seems like the site has only ever been used on that one evening. Chimney Swifts are mysterious creatures, indeed. We’re thrilled to recognize SMHC with this award for their longstanding commitment to coexisting with Chimney Swifts, and we look forward to many more years of the swifts calling this site their home!
Marissa Berard
Our final 2025 Swift Champion is Marissa Berard. A familiar name to all of you, Marissa was nominated for the Swift Champion award by the Steering Committee for her time as MCSI Program Coordinator from 2022-2025. Her interest in Chimney Swifts was sparked during her time in the Resource Conservation department at Riding Mountain National Park. In this role, Marissa coordinated swift monitoring and outreach initiatives within the park. The transition over to MSCI Program Coordinator was thus a natural one, and she spent over three years growing the program and extending its reach throughout the province. While leading the MCSI, Marissa was instrumental in accomplishing a great deal for the program, and the swifts it supports. Notably, she secured a five-year grant for MCSI through the ECCC’s Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk, ensuring a long-term, stable source of funding for the program! She also worked to cultivate meaningful partnerships with other organizations within the province, such as the Manitoba Métis Federation and the University of Manitoba Indigenous Birding Club. For these reasons, we’re happy to recognize Marissa as a 2025 Swift Champion. On behalf of everyone at MCSI, we would like to extend a very big thank-you to Marissa for all she has contributed to the program, and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors!
