Chimney Swift

Here's a new weathervane sculpture, titled Chimney Swift, on Portland State's brand new University Pointe student housing tower, which opened last fall to mixed reviews. Unlike a lot of recent posts here, I didn't find this one on a map first; I was just walking along minding my own business when I noticed the sign, which helpfully points out that the piece itself us up on the roof of the building. It turns out to be another work by Keith Jellum, the same guy behind Electronic Poet (overhead at the Galleria MAX stop), Transcendence (the salmon crashing through a building near the South Park Blocks), and Portal (the hammer arch on SW 1st near the Ross Island Bridge). Portal sits in front of the offices of the same construction company that built University Pointe and donated Chimney Swift. And with that, well, that's all I know about Chimney Swift.

Chimney swifts are another matter; the local variety is the Vaux's Swift, best known in the Portland for colonizing the chimney at Chapman School, in NW Portland, each fall. This draws crowds of human spectators, and often a few hungry hawks. I've gone to watch a few times but I've never brought a camera along, believe it or not. YouTube's full of Chapman School swift videos, though.