Chimney Swifts in Connecticut

The Chimney Swift Project is a joint venture between the Uconn Ornithology Lab and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CTDEP). Over the past several decades...Opportunity to create an artificial nesting structure that would increase swift nesting opportunities and be an effective vector for informing the public on conservation issues...

• Develop and employ an effective monitoring program that can be replicated by the CTDEP and other state agencies throughout the region.
  
• Develop and test the effectiveness of a newly designed artificial nesting structure.
  

Biology and Conservation Status
The Chimney Swift (Chateura pelagica)...

Artificial Nesting Structures
One of the main goals of this project is to design and deploy artificial chimney swift "towers." There are several organizations that have published tower designs that have been demonstrated to attract breeding swifts, but none of these designs have been empirically tested. In general, these designs are: expensive, labor intensive, require skill to constuct, and are not moveable. Link to driftwood website??
We intend to develop and test a tower design that is: relatively inexpensive, easy to construct, moveable, and composed of materials that are easy to obtain. This would allow for a greater number of towers to be constructed by both, state agencies and private landowners; and mobility allows for...

Monitoring
The CTDEP has been...

Public Education
There is great opportunity for public education throughout the duration of this project, and long into the future if the towers are established.

A work in progress...