Swifts Return to Historic Sherman Tower - Press Release
----- Original Message ----- 
From: jim walters 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2014 9:13 AM
Subject: Swifts Return to Historic Sherman Tower - Press Release


A little good news in a world in turmoil.


Apologies if you are getting this twice. Many of you are on the Sherman donor list and our press release list too.


Jim W.


ALTHEA R. SHERMAN PROJECT
1033 E. WASHINGTON   IOWA CITY, IA 52240-5248

For Immediate Release - August 7, 2014
Contact: Barbara Boyle  (319) 668-1728

NEWS RELEASE

About: Chimney Swifts Return to Historic Sherman Tower!

Everyone associated with the restoration of Althea R. Sherman's historic Chimney Swifts Tower had given up hope that the swifts would nest this year - their first chance since the tower was re-erected last year.  But when Sherman Project Director Barbara Boyle recently checked the structure, she was delighted to find a new swift nest, with five white eggs - attached inside the chimney in exactly the spot where the swifts had nested year-after-year for Althea Sherman!

Typically, swifts nest only once a year, although second nests are not unusual. Given the lateness of this nesting, it could be either a second nesting or possibly the first by a pair who had failed in an earlier attempt.

Chimney swifts build a nest from small twigs, glued to the inside of a chimney by a sticky saliva they produce. They usually have clutches of 4-5 eggs and incubate for about nineteen days. As the young swifts grow they can leave the nest and move around inside the chimney by using the specialized feet that allow them to tightly grip the wall. As their wings strengthen, they practice flying inside the chimney, before finally joining their parents in the breathtaking aerial flights that swifts are known for.

In 1915, Iowa ornithologist Althea R. Sherman designed the very first chimney swift tower and had it built in her backyard in the tiny town of National. She was the very first person - using this unique structure - to observe the complete nesting cycle of the swifts. She studied swifts in this tower for eighteen years and became the world's leading authority on the species.

When the Althea R. Sherman Project put the deteriorating tower into protective storage back in 1992, swifts were still regularly nesting in it. Project members are thrilled that the swifts have returned the very first year the tower was again available to them.

Over the last week three of the five eggs have hatched and the parents are busily feeding them.

Although video cameras are in place in the restored tower, a Internet linkup has not yet been established. The Sherman Project hopes to have these cameras up on the Web soon. Please check the website (althearsherman.org) for more information and for ways that you can support this ongoing work.

-30-

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.


You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]