It’s a busy time for the Bancroft Field Naturalists Club.
The nature group meets monthly and, according to group president Karin Dietrich, this month members weren’t heading into the fields and forests after the May 21 meeting — but to an unlikely spot: the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) building on Highway 28 in Bancroft.
It’s there that members hoped to catch a glimpse of a local natural wonder that appears only at this time of year.
Each spring at dusk, Dietrich said, a spectacular sight occurs when chimney swifts — what she calls a ‘cigar-shaped bird’ — come to roost in the MTO chimney.
“I don’t know who first discovered it. We’ve been coming for years and years to see it. It’s quite a phenomenon. You’ll hear them flying overhead, and then all of a sudden they start to spiral. One will kind of go down and test it, and before you know it, they all just start funneling into the chimney.”
Dietrich adds that the MTO chimney is no longer in use.
“A lot of areas are protecting chimneys and birds. Canada has programs to help protect habitat for them. They used to roost in dead trees — we’re talking way back — and then they started using chimneys and artificial structures. So now a lot of places have had to protect their chimneys for them because they are quite endangered. Their populations are really declining.”
Chimney swifts are currently roosting most nights at dusk at the MTO building in Bancroft.
The Bancroft Field Naturalists Club meets monthly at 168 Hastings Street (the Child and Youth Hub). Various outings are announced at meetings.
