- This event has passed.
NCAS: Vaux’s Happenings: 28 million and Counting
January 28 @ 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Join the North Cascades Audubon Society for a presentation with guest speaker Larry Schwitters in the Rotunda Room of Old City Hall.
The Audubon’s Vaux’s Happening Project began in 2007 as a successful effort to save a school chimney that was one of only two well-known big number Vaux’s Swift roost sites in Washington state. This chimney is now recognized as a Partners In Flight Important Bird Area of Global significance. The project quickly expanded into an attempt to locate, raise awareness of, and preserve the important roost sites used by this species all along their migratory path. The project has now documented over 200 roosting sites from the Yukon to Guatemala used by over 28 million swifts in the last 36 migrations. During this program, Schwitters will share images and information captured by the project’s chimney surveillance cameras, precision temperature recorders, and radio tracking transmitters.This last year monitoring has finally produced long sought after information on over wintering Vaux’s Swifts, especially south of Mexico City.
Larry Schwitters earned a Master of Science degree from East Texas State University and spent thirty years in the trenches of public education, mostly as a middle school science teacher and coach in the Renton, WA School District. After an early retirement, his first involvement with the avian Apodidae family was Black Swift field research for the American Bird Conservancy. His experiences in this endeavor were the subject of the cover story for the American Birding Association’s “Winging It” magazine. He has focused on the smaller Vaux’s Swifts for the last 18 years. His efforts are covered in the Birder’s World featured article, “46 Minutes of WOW”. Schwitters was chosen by Cornell Lab of Ornithology to do their most recent Vaux’s Swift update on their Birds of the World research database. At the end of 2023 it was announced that Larry had been selected as National Audubon’s volunteer of the year.
Free/$5 Suggested donation
The Whatcom Museum acknowledges that we gather on the traditional territory of the Lhaq’temish – Lummi People – and the Nuxwsá7aq – Nooksack People – who have lived in the Coast Salish region from time immemorial. The Museum honors our relationship with all of our Coast Salish neighbors and our shared responsibilities to their homeland where we all reside today.
Explore Washington State brings you the latest and greatest local events across “Washington! If it’s happening in Washington, you’ll find it on our calendar, from festivals to fairs, concerts to community gatherings. Stay tuned so you never miss what’s happening around the Evergreen State!”
