News Archives - Saint Paul Bird Alliance

Watching the Skies: How Community Science is Rallying for the Endangered Chimney Swift

Watching the Skies: How Community Science is Rallying for the Endangered Chimney Swift

In 2026, members of the Saint Paul Bird Alliance stepped up to protect a vulnerable species by participating in the Chimney Swift Monitoring Project. This vital community science initiative was led by a powerful coalition, including the Urban Bird Collective, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Migratory Birds program, and the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Together, volunteers gathered critical ecological data to help reverse the fortunes of the Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica), an aerial insectivore whose populations are in decline.

Because Chimney Swifts rely heavily on human-built chimneys for nesting and roosting, the Twin Cities and surrounding regions are a crucial battleground for their observation and protection. Local communities responded to this need in record numbers this year. Statewide volunteer participation surged by 400%, growing to a dedicated network of over 85 volunteers. From May 1st through August 30th, these community scientists kept a watchful eye on local skies by monitoring historical roosts biweekly, identifying entirely new roosting locations, and mapping their own discovery sites.

The project also brought neighbors together through nine community “swift sits,” where attendees gathered to watch swifts stage in large numbers before their long journey south. While enthusiasm was high, the data revealed some sobering trends. Monitors noted lower bird counts this season, which coordinators believe stems from a lack of food sources due to this year’s intense regional droughts and wildfires. Last year at our Mahtomedi sits, we had numbers from 2,000 to 3,000 on some nights; this year we had a high of 725.

The fight to protect these incredible aerial acrobats will continue next year, and we need your help. If you would like to join the effort as a monitor for the next season, please reach out to Monica Bryand at urbanbirdcollective@gmail.com to be added to the official project mailing list. Next year will start with project info, then training for all volunteers.

–Monica Bryand

Pigs Eye Regional Park Hike Tuesday 09/22/26, Kathy Sidles

WE LEARNED ABOUT DRAGONFLIES ON THE CONCRETE BRIDGE FROM JOHN ARTHUR – John has been learning and teaching about dragonflies for many years. They spend most of their life in the water as aquatic insects. Then, when adults, they fly around eating insects, sometimes without stopping to rest. They can use the sun for energy too. And a few species migrate…with Kestrels traveling with them, hoping for a meal. As aquatic insects, they breathe through their butt, he said. Some of us snickered like the school kids he tells this to. I will look this up someday! A Damselfly flew by. John said they are related but generally put their wings together over their back instead of spreading them out like Dragonflies.

HEADING DOWN THE TRAIL – A Kestrel was still on the Kestrel nest box – looks like a more colorful male. Sometimes it would fly down to catch a meal (small birds, dragonflies, snakes, rodents) and fly back to eat it. We saw a second Kestrel – a female in my picture – in a woodland tree above a wetland. We saw a few dragonflies until we got closer to where Battle Creek flows into Pig’s Eye Lake, and then we saw a LOT of them. They were glinting in the sun, flying a few feet over the grassland near the creek. A cloud covered the sun, and then we didn’t see them…the sun came back, and we still didn’t see them! Barb said she and Kiki saw them at the bridge, so maybe they were moving around as a group chasing insects. The Dragonflies were not stopping for pictures. But John was able to ID four or more species by how they flew. He showed us a picture of Saddlebags in his ID book – and could see the “saddlebags” next to their wings as they flew by us.

AT PIG’S EYE LAKE – One highlight of the walk was seeing more than 200 Pelicans flying over and landing on the lake, then flying up and away! This was more Pelicans than many had ever seen at one time.

ON THE WAY HOME – Most people took the short loop mowed trail back. We took a picture of a Damselfly resting on a stick on the trail. And one of the handful of species of Katydids looking like a leaf – a Broad-winged Katydid maybe. A couple of people took the longer trail loop back. It was the first time most of these birders had been in this park. Despite the wood chipping, RR and airplane noise, and difficulty finding the park, it was fun for them to see the rich wildlife. I bet some will be back to Saint Paul’s biggest park and former dump waiting for cleanup. Maybe for special Saint Paul Bird Alliance or other events, or for Pig’s Eye Park Friends 9:30 AM walks on most Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Kathy Sidles

American Kestrels -Another Successful Nest Box Season

Saint Paul Bird Alliance volunteers have led a project since 2012 to supply nest boxes for American Kestrels in the East Metro area. Since 2012, dedicated team members have monitored and reported the nesting outcomes for these boxes. Approximately 185 Kestrels have fledged since the project’s inception.

2026 was another successful year for local Kestrels and for the nest box team. Four of seven nest boxes successfully produced offspring. From each of these four boxes, five young Kestrels fledged successfully. As usual, we reported this information to the citizen science effort called NestWatch.

This season, we installed a new nest box at Pigs Eye Park, though it hasn’t been used yet. We’re discussing repositioning the two Lake Elmo nest box locations to better attract Kestrels.

Also, the Kestrel team no longer maintains and monitors the nest boxes installed at Rice Creek North and Tamarack Nature Center because Ramsey County has assumed this responsibility.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds, American Kestrels are North America’s smallest falcons and are some of the most colorful of all raptors. They perch on wires or poles, or hover while facing into the wind, as they hunt for insects or other small prey in open territory.

Debbie Brown – VP and Co-Chair – Conservations Committee

Make Way for Ducklings

Bird’s-eye View
Kiki Sonnen, President, SPBA

Our Saint Paul Bird Alliance Board of Directors is considering a community-based project to create safe wildlife passageways with transportation agencies. It’s similar to pollinator pathways but includes wildlife corridors.

We call the project Make Way for Ducklings, inspired by a children’s book about a brave Mama Mallard finding a way to move her ducklings to Boston. Crossing four lanes of traffic is a common dilemma for duck families. We seek community support for modifying transit infrastructure to accommodate wildlife overland bridges and underground culverts. The project aims to protect wildlife as they travel historic trails. It saves animal lives, makes roadways safer, reduces car crashes, and alleviates trauma, anxiety, and sadness. We envision a time when a River Otter can travel from the Mississippi River to White Bear Lake and return without harm.

With community support, this project could qualify for grants from the state and federal transit Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program, which has $350 million in funds. We’d act as community coordinator, data gatherer, and co-applicant with MNDOT or Ramsey County Public Works.

To manage the project, we need a geographic territory. We suggest an area in the East Metro bounded to the north by White Bear Lake and the Ramsey County line, to the south by the Mississippi River, to the west by 35E, and to the east by the Ramsey County line.

This territory includes Ramsey County and seven cities: White Bear Township, White Bear Lake, Gem Lake, Little Canada, North St. Paul, Maplewood, and St. Paul. It encompasses diverse communities, including low-income and working people as well as middle-class residents. Transportation options include interstates, highways, city streets, regional and state trails, bike lanes, heavy barge traffic, and railways. The Mississippi River, large lakes, creeks, wetlands, woodlots, parks, and open spaces provide habitats for various birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects.

We need funding for SPBA to develop feasibility studies, hotspot mapping, community outreach, and create liaisons with local, state, and federal partners. To launch the project, we are requesting preliminary grants of $50,000 from the McKnight Foundation, National Audubon, and St. Paul Foundation for staffing, planning, mapping, community outreach, and coordination with government agencies. This project may take three to four years.

If you’re interested in helping, contact us. You can help us start by discussing the project with community groups in our area, such as community councils, civic organizations, religious groups, schools, neighborhood groups, and environmental groups. Explain our project and goals, answer questions, and request a letter of support for our funders and agency partners. Additionally, identify hot spots where animals are hit by traffic and include that information in our mapping.

Together, we can Make Way for Ducklings!

Feather Trails – Recording Available – Sophie A. H. Osborn

Recording Now Available – Click Here

Co-sponsored with Land of Lakes Bird Alliance

Program Notes: Birds are visible, vocal sentinels that alert us to environmental harms through their declining numbers or their failure to thrive. In her book Feather Trails—A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds, Sophie Osborn shares her personal experiences reintroducing endangered Peregrine Falcons, Hawaiian Crows, and California Condors to the wild. While immersing readers in the triumphs and tribulations of being a wildlife biologist, Sophie explores the threats that imperiled these birds, and reveals that what harmed them threatens us, too. She will discuss what led to the endangerment of these three captivating species, recount biologists’ efforts to recover their populations, and read a few excerpts from her book describing what it was like to work with these magnificent birds.

Sophie A. H. Osborn is an award-winning writer and wildlife biologist whose work has included studying and conserving more than a dozen bird species in the Americas. She contributed to reintroduction efforts for several endangered birds, including as a field manager for the California Condor Recovery Program in Arizona. Her first book, Condors in Canyon Country, won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award for Nature and the Environment. Reviewers for the American Birding Association chose her second book, Feather Trails, as their favorite bird book of 2024. Sophie has written articles for Bird Conservation, BirdWatching, and Wyoming Wildlife magazines, and co-edited an anthology of short stories, Wild Work—Adventures of Women Field Biologists (publication date: September 2026). She also writes the “Words for Birds” blog.

Additional Information:

Sophie’s website: https://www.wordsforbirds.net/

Words for Birds blog on the Substack platform: https://wordsforbirds.substack.com/

Cardinal – September 2026

Click here to see the September 2026 Cardinal

Bird’s Eye View – Protecting our Birds

It is already September, and we’re in for peak migration of birds traveling to their wintering grounds.

Let’s work together to improve their chances of survival on their hazardous journey. We need bird-safe glass to prevent deaths from window collisions. We need dark skies to keep migrants safe.

The National Park has decided to keep the St Louis Gateway Arch dark overnight for the month of September. This is happening to protect the hundreds of thousands of birds traveling through St. Louis on their migration along the Mississippi River Flyway. Keeping the Arch dark is temporary. Overnight lights will again illuminate the Arch in October.

Our songbirds, warblers, vireos, and shorebirds migrate at night because the winds die down, temperatures cool, stars show the way, and evening flying is easier. But bright night lights in our cities pointed into the sky can confuse birds and mess with their navigation skills. Sometimes birds get tricked by the lights and keep circling until exhaustion overcomes them, and they crash to the ground.

Let’s follow St. Louis’ lead and ask all our municipalities along the Mississippi River Flyway to turn off unnecessary recreational and promotional lighting – just for September. Let’s give our birds the break they need.

And let’s not forget that we still need – more than ever – bird safe glass in our homes but especially in new commercial construction and on school and college campuses across the state.

Consider how our songbirds rest after a night of flight and wake to forage for food. They are in unfamiliar places and are tricked by reflections on glass windows and doors. They see trees and open spaces, then crash headfirst into the glass.

You may think they are just stunned. But you are the ones being tricked. Hitting your head at high speed into glass causes broken beaks, broken sternums, broken wings, and brain bleeds. If you can, collect the injured and bring them to the Wildlife Rehab Center to see if the bird can be saved.

If the bird is dead, photograph the bird at the scene, note its species, sex, adult or immature, GPS coordinates, location of the incident, street address, name of building, date, and time. If this incident occurs on a campus with a Stop the Thud Program, provide that information. If the incident occurs elsewhere, send the data to us at contact Saintpaulbirdalliance.org

Meanwhile, keep reminding public officials, developers, building owners, property managers that we need bird safe glass in all new construction and we need existing problem windows retrofitted with paracords or spotted decals on the exterior glass.

With birds in steep decline, we must do all we can to ensure our precious birds can take wing again on their journey.

Thanks for helping!

Jane Braun

Remembering a valued member of our community and the SPBA Board: Jane Braun

With deep affection and respect, we remember the contributions of Jane Ellen Braun to our Saint Paul Bird Alliance, to birding, and to caring for birds and people. Jane’s favorite bird was the green heron, with its brilliant iridescence.

Jane joined the Saint Paul Bird Alliance (formerly St. Paul Audubon Society) board of directors in 2018 and brought innovation and leadership.

She worked to establish criteria for the organization to award grants in Ramsey and Washington counties for projects to protect and improve bird habitat. She served as board vice president and helped provide steady, organized leadership to this all-volunteer organization for five years. Jane was an enthusiastic, welcoming, and educational force for birding. She led or collaborated on numerous field trips; she worked to ensure that birders of all levels felt valued in the local birding community.

Her life exemplified dedication and joy. Jane Ellen Braun, daughter of Richard and Ellen Braun, succumbed to pancreatic cancer on June 26, 2026, after a courageous dance with this insidious disease. Jane was born in Detroit Lakes and raised in Columbia Heights, graduating as valedictorian of her high school class. She is the beloved sister of Catherine and brother Bill, and a friend to so many. A proud jock, she could be found on most any basketball or volleyball court, softball diamond, ice rink or golf course.

A lifelong public servant, Jane worked in a variety of roles at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Hennepin County Health Department, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). She was the State of Minnesota’s representative on the national Cancer Registry, which tracked cancer trends across the country, where she developed treasured friendships. Jane was also MDH’s Emergency Preparedness lead, working with other agencies and county public health officials to keep the public safe during epidemics, including H1N1 and Ebola, and during large events such as the 2008 Republican National Convention.

In 2015, Jane went to the MPCA to manage that agency’s emergency preparedness, remediation and closed landfill programs.

When she retired from MPCA in the spring of 2018, she used all her considerable intelligence and skills to become a passionate birder. She is currently listed in eBird as a top birder in many locations, both counties and countries. Jane voluntarily interrupted this passion in 2020 to return to MDH to assist with the State’s response to COVID, working with dedicated state and local public health officials to set up COVID testing and vaccination sites across the state and overseeing safety. Jane gave so much and made a difference for many people who never knew of her efforts. Such is the work of public health, of which she was so proud.

She traveled extensively, visiting 6 of the 7 continents. She had a deep love of the Minnesota State Fair, Xena Warrior Princess, extremely large fiberglass statues, and Bigfoot (who knew!). She could also identify where all the good bakeries were and would never pass up an opportunity to eat donuts, cake and ice cream.

Donations in Jane’s honor can be made to: Friends of Sax-Zim Bog (PO Box 3585, Duluth, MN 55803; Tucson Bird Alliance Vermilion Legacy Society (PO Box 91770, Tucson, AZ 85752 TIN #86-6053779); and the Global Penguin Society (Wildlife Conservation Network Supporting the Global Penguin Society, 209 Mississippi St., San Francisco CA 94107 EIN 30-0108469)

A celebration to honor her life, legacy and quirky nature will be held on Friday October 30 at 2 PM, with a reception to follow. Because of space constraints, we will send location information with your RSVP. If you are interested in attending, please email CelebrateJEB@gmail.com, so we can provide you with that information.

Chimney Swift Sit

On a balmy summer Saturday evening in June, a crowd gathered in the parking lot of a historic West Side neighborhood in St. Paul. People set up their lawn chairs and picnic blankets and munched on popcorn, waiting for the show. Not a movie, not a band, not Shakespeare in the Park. No, we were there to witness the show of Chimney Swifts descending from the sky into their night roost in the chimney of Casa de Luz, a church and rectory on George Street.

This Chimney Swift Sit event was sponsored by the MN DNR’s Non-game Program, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Urban Bird Collective, Land of Lakes Bird Alliance, and Saint Paul Bird Alliance.

Monica Bryand from Urban Bird Collective and Mags Edwards of the DNR Non-game Program told us about the statewide Chimney Swift Recovery Project now underway. It is a community-based scientific project that everyone can join for free. The goal is to find Swift roosts, count Swifts, and track those numbers as they change week to week, including when they arrive in the spring and when they leave for South America, where they overwinter.

To learn more about the Swift Recovery Project and see how you can get involved, visit the MN DNR Chimney Swift Project.

It is important that we do all we can to help the Swifts. They are in steep decline. The loss of their roosting and nesting sites, along with the collapse of the insect population, puts Chimney Swifts in danger of extinction.

If you get a chance to go to a Chimney Swift Sit, do it! At our Sit on the West Side, I met so many neighbors. One family was very proud of their beautiful historic home and of hosting the Chimney Swifts. One neighbor had never heard of Swifts until that night. He was so grateful to learn. He told me about his parakeet and how much the bird means to him. Suddenly, my friend Arthur Brady showed up! He had been visiting his dad across the street and wondered what all the hullabaloo was about. Arthur started thinking that his dad’s house has a chimney of Swifts, too. “I always thought they were bats!” Arthur said.

That’s the thing about Chimney Swifts, and birds in general, they help us humans connect with each other on common ground. Birds show us we are all related.

Kiki Sonnen – SPBA President

Photo Ben Cvengros

Landscape Revival – Summary

Landscape Revival Recap

June 6, 2026

Colleen Swedberg, LR Coordinator

The June 6, 2026, Landscape Revival event saw approximately 1,175 attendees and positive engagement, featuring new exhibitors and strong vendor participation from across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Survey results indicated high venue satisfaction, with milkweed, grasses, and leadplant among the top purchases, and a need for a larger native plant inventory to meet demand.

Attendance continues to be very good. There were approximately 1,175 in attendance, and of those, approximately 285 went inside to visit the Exhibitors. These numbers were slightly down from last year but still very good. (Weather was good – a little warm in the sun, but had a nice breeze). Economic uncertainty could be affecting people’s actions.
Although this year we didn’t ask where the customers lived in our survey we found out just by talking to them. I found out one couple came from Grand Marais and another from Brainard. Other people came from Minnetonka and New Richmond, WI. People came from all over MN & WI. That shows how important this event is to the community.
We had a couple of new Exhibitors – Bird City of Stillwater and Scrap Recycle of Ramsey & Washington County.
This year St Paul Bird Alliance was able to rejoin us. They had not been able to join us for the previous couple of years. Neil Carlson did a great job hosting that table. He brought a powerful ultraviolet light and different-colored rocks to show which colors some birds see. It was GREAT!

In summary, a special thanks to the St Paul Bird Alliance for the grant given to Landscape Revival. Between the grant money and the grower/vendor fees, the money was spent on paying for the postcards, Facebook blasts, weights for the canopies (instead of using buckets of water), and an additional 6’ folding table.

This does not include the money that Jeff and I continue to donate for the volunteer food truck lunches and the waters & protein/granola bars in the coolers for the Exhibitors, Growers & Volunteers.

Overall, it was another successful year. Many thanks to all the growers/vendors, the LR Committee Members, Exhibitors, and Volunteers that participated!

Photo Evan-Barrientos