Every fall in the schoolyard at Frank Wagner Elementary in the rural community of Monroe, Washington, teachers, parents, students, and community members stand eagerly awaiting the big moment. It’s a homecoming of sorts – but not the football kind. Everyone is waiting for the chance to witness tens of thousands of Vaux's Swifts perform their aerial ballet into and out of the school’s unused chimney.
The chimney at Frank Wagner Elementary hosts the largest known colony of Vaux's Swifts (pronounced “vox”) in Washington and one of the largest colonies in the world, with 20,000 swifts using the chimney as home base during spring and fall migration.
Vaux's Swifts are summer residents of forested areas in Washington State. Since they cannot perch like other birds, the small birds roost and nest in natural vertical cavities such as tree snags. With natural snags increasingly hard to come by, swifts have adapted and substitute chimneys as roosting and nesting sites. These man-made “habitat” features have thus become important to the species’ survival.
With a TogetherGreen Innovation Grant, Pilchuck Audubon will work with Seattle Audubon and Eastside Audubon to launch the Monroe Save Our Swifts campaign, a multi-year initiative to save the major migratory roosting site for Vaux's Swifts in Washington – the chimney at Wagner Elementary School.
The Frank Wagner Elementary chimney was built in 1939 and is located in the center of the school building, where it represents an unacceptable seismic risk to children at the school. The Monroe School District began discussions in 2007 with the Audubon chapters about finding a solution to the chimney issue, which led to the formation of the Monroe Save Our Swifts Campaign.
TogetherGreen funding will support development of an in-school science curriculum, as well as monitoring and community engagement activities related to the Vaux's Swifts. This funding will complement an allocation in 2009 by the WA State legislature of $100,000 to pay for the actual earthquake retrofit of the chimney. The goal of the program is not only to save the swifts' roosting site, but to do so in partnership with the citizens of Monroe and the greater Puget Sound region.