Exploring Roseburg Oregon: Roseburg Swift Watch

9/25/20 – Begins an hour before sunset.

Fir Grove Section of Stewart Park behind the Umpqua Valley Arts Center
1624 West Harvard Ave.
Roseburg, Oregon

Swift Watch is quite abbreviated this year due to COVID-19.  The birds will be there in migration, but NONE of the usual music and art festivities. But please do come to enjoy the birds! Wear your mask and keep your distance for the safety of all visitors.

Vaux’s Swifts (pronounced “vawks”) nest only in Western North America, migrating to Central and South America for the winter. Each year, thousands of Swifts gather in the chimney adjacent to The Clay Place in the Fir Grove section of Stewart Park off of Harvard Avenue behind the Umpqua Valley Arts Center during their migration. At sunset during migration, Swifts gather in the dozens, sometimes hundreds or thousands, to communally roost. Typically, these roost sites are, as here, old industrial chimneys. While numbers vary from year to year, the display can be spectacular.

Courtesy of The Mary Gilbert Group

Photo Credit: experienceroseburg.com