The Vaux’s Swifts Have Abandoned Their Chapman Elementary School Roost

About two dozen people came to Chapman Elementary School to see the Vaux’s swifts one hazy evening last week. Just before sunset, they laid out their blankets and their picnic spreads, turned to face the decommissioned chimney at the Northwest Portland school, and they waited.

All the other elements of the season were in place—leaves starting to crisp, school back in session—but this year, for the first time in about 30 years, no birds came.

“We can’t really answer for sure why they left us, but we know they did leave,” says Joe Liebezeit, statewide conservation director for Bird Alliance of Oregon.

In an interview, Liebezeit used verbs like “abandoned,” “left” and “moved,” and, most alarmingly, he spoke of the Chapman swifts in the past tense. As in, “it was a really special event for us in the environmental conservation field.”

Since the mid-’90s, up to 20,000 of the tiny birds have swarmed the chimney each night in September in a skyward spectacle at sunset. After flying in increasingly crowded circles around the cylinder, they would suddenly dive into the 1923 chimney to rest for the night. The audience—numbering up to 3,000, according to the Bird Alliance, which estimates both bird and human attendance—would clap and cheer. (The event’s fanatics call themselves Swifties.) The swifts take a Portland layover during migration from their Pacific Northwest breeding grounds to their tropical winter homes in Central and South America.

By all accounts, last year was a weird one. The population peaked at the very beginning of September, with only 5,430 swifts, and then were gone by midmonth, according to the Bird Alliance. Many observers were holding out hope for a rebound this fall, including the group of onlookers at Chapman the night of Sept. 3.

Dan Young brought about 10 friends with him to bird-watch. Young has come seven years in a row, ever since he moved to Portland. He read the news that the swifts had left Chapman, but it didn’t sink in until he got to the campus. He didn’t have to fight for a parking spot or room for two large blankets on the grass.

“It was extra sad showing up and setting up a picnic and having the park be totally empty,” he says. “I knew the likelihood of seeing birds today would be low. But having the park be empty it was immediately, like, we’re just on a hill by ourselves now.”

Liebezeit and other wildlife biologists investigated all the causes he could think of to determine why the swifts left their Chapman roost. Was it predators? Hawks, crows and peregrine falcons are known to perch nearby and then swoop through the flock of swifts. “It’s like a dinner buffet for raptors,” Liebezeit says. He found no correlation between predator activity increasing and swift population decreasing, but it still could be a factor.

The contractors that refurbished the chimney in 2021 did a great job not to disturb the habitat, Liebezeit says, and the birds continued to roost there for a few more years, so that’s not it. Climate change? Vaux’s swifts are still roosting in other Portland-area chimneys, so Liebezeit doesn’t think that’s the culprit.

Here’s a theory: drones. (WW examined this idea in 2023.)

“Occasionally, someone will fly a recreational drone through the flock—some idiots—and that definitely disturbs the birds,” Liebezeit says. Birds perceive them as another raptor trying to hunt them. And sure enough, on Sept. 3, a drone had circled the chimney around 6:30 pm, onlooker Jeff Murray says.

Murray believes the birds’ disappearance is due to human error. He has been coming to see the Chapman swifts for 30 years. Murray says 2024 wasn’t just a weird year for the birds: On the ground, there was a party atmosphere, with a soccer game on the field and multiple people flying drones. Liebezeit has not found any correlation between the number of people on the ground and the birds using the chimney or not.

“I hope we as people learn a lesson, and I hope [the swifts] forgive us. Because I think we screwed up,” Murray says. He plans to return to the field multiple times this month, checking for his avian forgiveness.

Chapman Elementary’s mascot is a swift. Its logo is a swift, and there is permanent educational signage posted on the campus about the birds. Portland Public Schools spokeswoman Valerie Feder says the school is nowhere near ready to pivot away from its signature bird: “No one’s ready to count them out yet.”

Liebezeit says even if 2025 is a no-fly zone at Chapman, there’s a chance the birds will return in 2026 or after. So far, it seems the swifts are back in Portland but roosting in other chimneys around town, the locations of which the Bird Alliance of Oregon is not publicizing for fear they become overrun with spectators. Liebezeit doesn’t want homeowners tempted to cap their chimneys. Humans have already plundered the swifts’ natural roosts in hollowed-out trees in old growth forests; letting them crash in our chimneys is the least we can do.

The Bird Alliance is encouraging visitors to look for roosts in their own neighborhoods, park respectfully or take public transportation, pack out all trash, and report new roosts to the organization online.

Liebezeit was game to wax philosophical about what we can learn from the swifts’ departure.

“If you’re a Buddhist, impermanence,” he says. “They haven’t always used Chapman, and maybe they’ll be back. So, people should reflect and be like, nature is impermanent and it changes and go with the flow. Adapt to the new situation, just like birds are.”