(Jack Stenger asked me to post the following for him.)

Although Chimney Swifts are common breeding birds throughout their range, swifts nesting in hollow trees are now a rare occurrence. 

On May 24th I found a Chimney Swift nest tree in Vinton Furnace State Experimental Forest (Vinton County). For the past two weeks I (and others) have been observing three birds enter and exit the tree a couple times every hour. I have not actually seen the nest or young because I haven't climbed the dead, hollow tree. Based off of other observations there are likely a few more nest trees in the area, constituting a small population of tree-nesting Chimney Swifts. I'm close to finding another nest - just a matter time to find the exact tree.

The nest tree is in an area managed with a shelterwood cut. Imagine a ridge-top oak savanna with enough understory to attract chats, Blue-winged Warblers, and Prairie Warblers.  The nest tree is in a dead and hollow oak about thirty feet high. To put it simply, it looks like a wooden chimney without the house. 

According to Peterjohn's Birds of Ohio  (2001) the last natural nest in Ohio was near Cincinnati in 1939. The only other records since 1900 (that I'm aware of) are observations by Milton Trautman from Northwest Ohio during the 1920's.  Thanks to Bill Whan for kindly passing along the Trautman reference.  

 For a review paper on swifts nesting in trees go here: 

http://si-pddr.si.edu/jspui/bitstream/10088/2021/1/Graves--When_did_Chaetura_pelagica_become_the_chimney_swift.pdf

If anybody has an interest in observing this phenomenon, let me know and I can give directions to the tree they are using. I will be paying close attention to them for the rest of the summer. 



Jack Stenger

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