Instructions
Use Home Chimneys
Prepare your home chimney for chimney swifts. Uncap the top of the chimney. If you hire a company to do this, explain that you are helping chimney swifts and ask them if they will donate their fee or charge you a reduced fee.
Cover the upper outside walls of the chimney with metal sheets. This prevents predators from climbing up the sides and into the chimney to prey on the chimney swifts.
Hire a chimney sweep to clean the chimney in March. Explain that you are hoping to help chimney swifts and ask for a discount. Ask if they can install the metal plates on the outside top of the chimney if you need that help. Ask if the inside of the chimney is rough so the swifts will be able to hang on to the side walls.
Tell your friends and neighbors what you are doing and ask if they'd be willing to give chimney swifts a nesting place in their chimneys too. You may be able to get discounts on chimney cleanings and other work if several neighbors are having work done at the same time.
Close your chimney flue during the nesting season. Watch for birds returning from South America from March through May, and for fledglings flying for the first time beginning in August. If the noise from fledglings is bothersome, remind everyone that chirping fledglings are only at most 10 days from flying away.
Use Abandoned Smokestacks
Look for chimneys and smokestacks in factories and other buildings that aren't being used. Find out who owns them, and ask if they will open them up to chimney swifts.
Check the inside of the chimney or smokestack for obstructions. Clear any obstructions or hire someone to clear it.
Work with your local government, if necessary, by explaining that chimney swifts need more places to nest. If a house or factory is being demolished, ask if the chimney or smokestack can be saved for the chimney swifts to use. Explain that watching for the birds is an enjoyable outdoor activity in May and August, something for families to do together and a possible tourist activity.
Contact your local Audubon Society chapter, birding organization or other nature group if you need help convincing people that using the chimneys and smokestacks is necessary to help chimney swifts, whose numbers are dwindling.
Build Nesting Towers
Check with your local Audubon Society or birding group for workshops on building towers for chimney swifts, and if grants are available. If you're on your own, plan to build towers that are at least 8 to 12 feet tall. They should be double-walled, with space between the inner and outer walls.
Build cement platforms for the structures. An 8-foot tower needs a slab 36 inches long by 36 inches wide by 6 inches thick. A 12-foot tower needs a 48 inch by 48 inch by 10 inch concrete slab with steel reinforcement. Embed steel legs in the concrete to hold up the towers, and cover the legs with sticky paper to keep out ants.
Use treated plywood 3/4 inches thick on at least the top and bottom portions of the towers. It can be used for the entire structure, or recycled wood can be used for the middle portions of the towers.
Make a grid panel for the bottom with 3/8 inch holes, spaced 1 1/2 inches apart, for ventilation. Install the panel with screws so it can be removed, cleaned and stored.
Install foam insulation between the walls. This will keep out some of the heat and cold, and help buffer the sound if the swifts become noisy.
Clean the Structures
Clean the bottom of the chimneys, smokestacks or towers after the swifts have flown south for the winter. Remove the bottom of manmade towers for easy cleaning.
Remove all the droppings and set aside pieces of eggs. Also remove old nests.
Count the approximate number of eggs that were hatched and report the number to the Driftwood Wildlife Association's North American Chimney Swift Nest Site Research Project. This organization keeps track of the numbers of new chimney swifts.
Cover the wooden towers for the winter, after the swifts have flown south, to protect the structures and give them more years of use.
How to Attract Chimney Swifts
Birds known as swifts lack the ability to perch the way many birds can, but their feet are able to cling to the rough sides of flat objects such as the inside of brick chimneys. When the birds started to nest inside chimneys, they became known as chimney swifts. The swifts break off pieces of twigs as they fly, carry them into the chimney and attach them to the wall with their saliva, which hardens like glue. Now, with many chimneys capped so birds cannot get in, and chimneys often lined with other, more smooth materials, the number of chimney swifts has been declining. Opening up chimneys from March through October -- when they normally aren't used -- and building chimney-like towers help attract the chimney swifts when they fly north during their nesting season.