The North American Chimney Swift Nest Site Research Project is now 2 years old and growing fast.  Our mailing list has doubled and so has the number of experimental Chimney Swift structures.

Several more medium-sized towers (15" x 15" x 12' tall) were erected in high-visibility areas last year.  One at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department headquarters in Austin, Texas, another adjacent to the interpretive center at Huntsville State Park north of Houston and a third at the facility of Alabama Wildlife Rescue Service located in Oak Mountain State Park near Birmingham, Alabama.  All of these towers are complemented by visual displays which include a brief life history of Chimney Swifts, a migration map, color photos of baby swifts on a nest and a  circling flock complete with captions.  Public awareness is the key to the conservation of any species, and we hope these displays will peak the interest of those who see them.  Additional visual displays are available, at cost, from the Driftwood Wildlife Association.

As our number of Research Associates has grown, a number of interesting designs have been discussed and explored.  Several of our contributors have committed to using only recycled materials in the construction of Chimney Swift housing.  Perhaps the most innovative was a tower built by Raymond Usener of Fredericksburg, Texas.  Mr. Usener used the casings of old water heaters.  The tanks were removed, the insulation covered with burlap and chicken wire and replaced in the metal jackets.  Two of these were joined, legs were added, and the tower was stood upright.  Other contributors visited salvage yards such as Habitat for Humanity to purchase their building materials.

Aesthetics were also addressed.  Associates had ideas of towers shaped like light houses and totem poles.  Another idea was to make masonry driveway entrance columns and fence columns hollow and open on top to accommodate swifts.

Other associates reported traditional and not so traditional nesting and roosting sites.  Some of those included broken water cisterns, abandoned buildings, tall columnar shopping center signs and even a masonry bar-b-que pit!  We are always interested in any sites which are used by Chimney Swifts, so please let us know of your observations.

We do still have some funding available for the construction of prototype structures.  To qualify, the design must be relatively small ( we already know the large ones work!) and something which has not already been tried.  Just send us a rough sketch, a materials list, and the approximate cost of those materials.

As always, we have plenty of site report forms and educational brochures for distribution including a Home Owner's Guide and Environment Tips for Professional Chimney Cleaning Companies.  These publications are designed to be copied and distributed.  If you don't already have copies of these useful conservation tools, let us know and we'll be sure you get a copy of each.

The first Chimney Swifts of the 1996 season were sited on April 2nd at 6:30 PM.  Twenty minutes later, 2 swifts entered the south tower.  The "pair" roosted nightly with no additional swifts sighted until the evening of April 7th.

It was April 11th before any other evidence of roosting was noted.  On that morning, swift droppings were discovered in the north tower and the Castle.  By April 27th, nest construction was started in all 3 structures.  The Twin Towers housed 2 birds south and 3 birds north while the Castle hosted a roost of 51 individuals.

The first egg of the season was laid in the south tower nest on May 6th.  The next site to hold an egg was the north tower on May 19th.  The swifts in the Twin Towers went on to lay 6 and 5 eggs, respectively.

On May 13th, the roosting flock in the Castle was captured.  One individual declined to participate in the project, and left without being weighed, measured or banded.  The remaining 52 participants included 12 returns -- previously banded birds which had migrated to and from their wintering grounds in South America - and 40 unbanded swifts.  The returns included 1 wild bird which was first banded at our station in the fall of 1991, and 3 which had been hand-reared in our rehabilitation facility.

That evening only 2 birds returned to the Castle:  presumably the pair which had begun building the nest.  The construction progressed normally.  Interestingly, the nest was built entirely of dead juniper tips.  It started out very soft and flexible, but copious amounts of saliva transformed it into a very rigid and durable platform.  The Castle pair was incubating 4 eggs by June 26th.

The south tower family progressed without incident until June 8th, when Chimney Swift bugs and fire ants were observed in their tower.  Four of the 6 eggs had hatched by this time, and we were concerned for the nestlings.  The young were carefully removed from the nest and placed in an incubator.  The nest was covered, and the bottom section of the tower was dusted with 5% Sevin (Brand) dust.  As soon as the dust settled, the babies were returned to their nest.  Prior to dusting, one banded adult swift (1361-88856) was captured.  It was one of the 1991 south tower babies.  It was impossible to determine if it was one of the parents or a "helper".  The bird was placed on the wall next to the nest after the babies were in place.  The entire process took less than 10 minutes.  Within a short time, the young were being brooded by an adult which spread its wings to completely block them from view.

One week later, the same problem occurred in the north tower.  However, the 4 nestlings were very pale and weak.  The brooding adult and young were removed and their tower dusted.  Several of the Chimney Swift bugs were removed from the babies before they were returned to the nest.  Within 2 days, there were no further signs of the parasites, and all 4 of the young swifts were very pink and active.

During a routine inspection of the Castle on the morning of July 4th, we found a fallen nest on the floor along with 3 broken eggs and 1 tiny but uninjured hatchling.  The nest was reattached to the wall with strapping tape just as had been done the previous year.  The surviving baby was returned to the nest, and the parents soon returned.  Two days later, we were presented with a couple of 4 - 5 day old nestlings which had fallen with their nest in an Austin chimney. As is usually the case, it was impossible to replace the chimney nest. The age of the new acquisitions was very close to that of the Castle baby, and they were apparently healthy and uninjured. After some deliberation, we decided to place the 2 babies in the Castle nest with the singleton.  That evening there were 8 swifts roosting in the Castle, and we could hear the ruckus as the babies were being fed.

The next morning we were sickened to find that the strapping tape had come loose.  The Castle nest had fallen again.  All 3 nestlings were alive, but just barely.  We rushed them to an incubator, but 2 of the tiny babies died within a few hours.  The survivor was nursed back to health, hand-reared and ultimately released.

In 1995, we thought the fall of the Castle nest was due to early exposure to direct sunlight and the large size of the feathered nestlings.  However, after this year's fallen nest, we are concerned that the untreated cinder block may be partly responsible.  We are experimenting with a water-based masonry sealer.  It is advertised to stabilize the rather crusty surface of the cinder block without affecting the necessary texture.  We are hopeful that this will provide a better surface for a permanent bond of the saliva used in Chimney Swift nest construction.

The last of the 4 south tower babies fledged around July 3rd.  Three of the 4 north tower babies fledged about 1 week later.  The 4th never fledged despite encouragement from an increasing roosting flock.  The lagging swift continued to beg from the others which would huddle close around it.  The troubled bird was normal in appearance, animated and continued to call throughout our observations.  However, on August 1st, it was observed near the bottom of the tower in obvious distress.  Once retrieved, it died within minutes.  When examined, it was emaciated, but apparently uninjured.  Whatever prevented the bird from fledging remains a sad mystery.

The late summer flocks built up slowly until the Castle housed 59 and the north tower housed 45 swifts by late September.  On September 26, the Castle flock's numbers plummeted to 4 birds.  That same evening, 2 Eastern Screech Owls were perched in a Live Oak near the north tower.  They periodically flew out in an attempted to catch the circling swifts.
On September 28th, a frontal passage gave us several days of cold, damp weather.  On October 3rd, there were 125 swifts roosting in the north tower.  Five days later the roost had dropped to 49 birds.  We captured and banded the remnant flock on October 11th which included 2 hand-reared returns, 5 hand-reared recaptures (released in 1996), 3 wild recaptures and 24 unbanded birds.

The last swift to be seen on the station was a single individual which entered the north tower at dusk.  It may or may not have stayed the night.  In 1996, Chimney Swifts were known to be on the station for 224 days.