CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KRCU) - The Missouri Department of Conservation hosted a program to help count chimney swifts Tuesday night.
This event was part of a nationwide research project. It was held at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Cape Girardeau.
This project helps by collecting counts of swifts across the United States. Counts are used to track birds’ migration patterns and keep a record of the chimney swift population.
Bob Gillespe is a natural history biologist for the MDC. He says the birds are declining across their range because of different habitat change. That is why “Swift Night Out” takes place.
"Each year we conduct a swift night out and we come out and monitor chimney swifts populations in different chimneys that they utilize for their migration and basically we’re just getting an assessment of the number of birds using the chimney here at St. Vincents school," he said.
The Department hopes the event helped get people involved and educated about chimney swifts.
Lauren Campbell, KRCU
Photo courtesy of Audubon Minnesota.
