Sherri Gengenbach and Sarah Martin, who are bird-loving residents of the North Oaks neighborhood in east Austin, recently spearheaded construction of a Chimney Swift tower in their neighborhood park. The idea sprang from Sherri pondering how to give a family of swifts, who had set up residence inside the chimney of her own house adjacent to the park, another option for nesting and roosting nearby. While listening to KUT one day, Sarah heard a PSA for Travis Audubon’s “Flappy Hour” social event at Austin Beerworks. She and Sherri attended, and while there talked with TAS staff about the Chimney Swifts living in her chimney. This led the two women to visit Chaetura Canyon, where they met Paul and Georgean Kyle, the founders of the Chimney Swift Conservation Association and stewards of Chaetura Canyon.

Sherri and Sarah learned from the Kyles that Chimney Swift populations are in decline throughout their range, in large part due to decreasing habitat for nesting. These tiny insectivores need old, uncapped chimneys, hollow trees, or abandoned silos or other similar hollow structures to nest in— all of which are becoming progressively less available. Chimney Swift towers are essentially artificial chimneys that serve as a nesting cavity for one mated pair of swifts. Other swifts will roost in the tower late in the season before fall migration, but only one pair will use it to nest. Thus, there is an ongoing and growing need for additional towers to be constructed for their use, to allow additional pairs to find a suitable nesting location.

The Kyles have fine-tuned the design of Chimney Swift towers over their many decades of conservation work, and have made the design plans freely available to DIY’ers that want to tackle this construction project themselves (see end for link and more information on tower construction). Building a swift tower is labor and materials-intensive, so Sherri and Sarah contacted Harry Leuzinger, to whom Paul Kyle passed his tower construction work in 2022. Sherri then began the process of applying for a grant to cover the cost of construction and installation.  They were approved for a grant through HEB’s Community Investment Program to cover the complete cost of the tower   .

The tower was installed over two days in November 2024, and hopefully will be occupied by returning swifts in Spring 2025.  Stay tuned to Murmurations next year for an update on the North Oaks Neighborhood Park Chimney Swift tower!

More information on the grant for this tower:

The North Oaks Neighborhood Park was “adopted” several years ago by the North Oaks Neighborhood Association as part of the Austin Parks Foundation Adopt-a-Park program. This allows the park to qualify for non-profit status through APF.

Sherri successfully applied for a grant through HEB’s Commmunity Investment Program to cover the cost of the tower construction: .

Depending on where someone resides, various resources may be available to help offset the cost of installing a swift tower in their own neighborhood— contacting your local Parks/Recreation department is a great place to start.

Chimney Swift Tower construction cost estimate:

For DIY’ers, Harry and Paul estimate that a first-time builder of a single tower will spend ~100 hours total on the project. In addition to the construction and installation of the tower, this time estimate includes time spent sourcing and picking up materials at  multiple hardware stores, with a pickup or flatbed trailer needed to haul materials. Current (2025) cost of materials can range between $700-$1000 depending on market fluctuations for material, and whether or not additional tools need to be purchased.

For those that want a tower built, but do not want to DIY: Harry will construct a tower for a total fee of $2600, including all materials, labor, driving time within 20 miles of his home in Leander (additional fee for longer distances), and first year clean-out and evaluation to show the tower owner how to assess nesting success. Contact info below.

Links:

Construction plans and material list for an 8’ Chimney Swift Tower
HEB Community Investment Program
Austin Parks Foundation Adopt-a-Park program
Step-by-step photos of the North Oaks tower installation here:

Contact for Tower Construction:

Harry Leuzinger:  harryleuzinger@gmail.com
Mobile: (512) 699-4914
*Note: Harry is happy to serve as a free resource for DIY’ers with questions about tower construction.*