Stovepipe and Chimney Hazard, Chimney Swifts

Also see History of Bluebirding

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
Yesterday I had a man who is converting his 60 acre farm into a "certified organic" operation come visit to see how we are planting for wildlife, setting up nestboxes and growing crops and converting trees and chips into compost.

He just happened to drive up while Don Hutching's (quoted heavily in The Bluebird monitor's Guide) and I were busy building nestboxes for a new Master Gardener class next week. Anyway his friend riding with him has this "Bluebird story" he wants to share.

His farm is just south of my county and across Bob Sandlin Lake near a state park where Boy Scout Troop 101 has maintained 50 nestboxes for 12 years now.
He is just outside a large lakeshore development that we installed 25 nestboxes in also about 12 years ago and one of the Master Gardeners who live there maintains mostly Flying Squirrel boxes today. This is the area where I saw a flock of about 350>700 bluebirds about 10 years ago during a beautiful sunny winter day.

Anyway this Big City (Dallas man) retired and moved to the country two years ago and put in a workshop at his "weekend" home and decided to heat this shop with wood. He said you WON'T BELIEVE what I found when I opened the doors on the heater last month when that cold front finally hit our area!!!!
Don and I said YES WE WILL at almost the same time! You found dead bluebirds that went down the steel vent pipe because there was no wire "spark arrestor" around the chimney cap.....

His mouth dropped open and he said is this COMMON! We unfortunately said this really is pretty common for bluebirds and other cavity nesters to enter stove pipes and other openings like steel gate posts in search of some place to nest. Anyway we let him tell the "Whole" story where he said he cried like a baby cleaning out the dead birds from the wood burning stove....For many of you out there it would be hard for you to believe him when he told of heaping a five gallon bucket up with dead bluebirds and having to empty the bucket and return to remove even more.....just from those killed during one nesting season.

This still hurts this morning as when I close my eyes I can still see that huge flock of bluebirds rolling across the field towards me. Blue wings flashing in the air, the SHWOSH of sound as they sailed up and over me and the thousands of "bluebirds notes" tumbling from their rusty, red throats as they dodged between trees into the forest edge behind me.

Now I have a picture where a family of bluebirds responds to the frantic cries of one of their siblings calling up from the bottom of a sooty, black steel chimney, I can clearly see them one by one as each member of the family jumps down to see if they can help "save" the other family members. I can see this repeated over and over again at this one chimney all summer long and into our long beautiful Indian summer fall.

Parents who cannot swim jump into raging rivers to save a loved one. Whales and Dolphins beach themselves rather than leave a member behind so I guess I should not be surprised that such a gentle and loving red, white and blue creation with such a small heart of gold is not ready and willing to do the same for their species. Oh how I wish I could put a stop to the ignorance that leads to so many deaths like this. KK

I will probably have nightmares about bluebirds flying down my chimney and perishing, even though I know I have a screen over it and it is impossible for tha to happen. That was the saddest story, Keith, about the guy who found all the dead bluebirds in his wood stove. Years ago before I started using th wood stove that was in thebasement of the house I bought, I found a dead starling in it and realized that it might be a hazard so put a screen over the chimney at that time. Now all I do is look at all the chimneys and other death traps that our little feathered friends can end up in and perish. And I don't even know how to get the word out other than to mention it to neighbors and friends in
the community. Thanks to all who wrote about our eagle activities!

From: Lawrence Herbert [mailto:lherbert"at"4state.com]
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 10:53 PM
Subject: chimneys

Tree and Jeanette and Bluebirders:
Hold up on screening off those chimneys! That's not what Keith was saying unless I'm mistaken. He was discussing the small cylinder-type pipes that bluebirds, and sometimes others, go down. The pipe is so small in diameter that the birds can't negotiate getting back up - even if they get turned around - and die as a result.
Chimneys, on the other hand, are great for a pair of nesting swifts and for the huge numbers of swifts that visit them during migration.

A chimney is, by just a bit of stretch of the imagination, a cavity, so maybe the swifts are not off topic either!

Good birding, Larry H. Joplin (sw) MO.

From: Paula [mailto:PaulaZ"at"columbus.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:32 AM
Subject: Re: Chimneys

Larry,

Thank you for succinctly stating the importance of chimneys needed for chimney swifts to nest. I believe Tree said it too. I see all the chimneys in my area capped and wonder where the poor swifts go. There is a large old chimney in a school near us that is a staging area for them during migration. I had the privilege to watch them one evening and it was breathtaking - my birding friend said they had counted about 1,500 entering that chimney. Luckily, the school and maintenance staff allow the birds to use this chimney every year.

Paula Z, Powell (Central) Ohio

I agree with Larry. It sounds like one has to be very careful about which type of chimney to cover. Chimneys, especially old masonry ones, are very important to Chimney Swifts. A few may loose their lives in those but I don't think that usually happens. Chimney Swifts are declining and it is thought that it may be partially due to the loss of the older chimneys in which they can nest (they aren't called "chimney" swifts for nothing.) Their original habitat were old, appropriately hollowed-out trees which they will still use when they can find them. But we all know what has happened to those! Old, especially large chimneys, are very important during migration. This summer I watched hundreds during migration funnel into an old chimney on the edge of our "downtown" area that is slowly being revitalized. If you haven't seen that, it's an amazing thing to watch. I fear at some point that building is going to be taken down and the swifts will loose this important place. I appreciate learning about the website regarding info for building chimneys for them. I had heard about doing that but didn't have any further info.

Charlene Anchor, Illinois

Larry, my brick chimney is tall and narrow, about a 9" x 9" opening, sitting on a solid 6' tall foundation. A horizontal stovepipe goes into a hole in the side of the chimney just above the foundation with a short vertical stovepipe down to an old cast iron potbelly stove.

Cavity nesting birds, mostly Starlings but also some House Sparrows and Bluebirds, routinely explore the opening in the brick chimney and can't get back out the top. I guess the inside isn't rough enough for them to climb and it's too narrow and tall to fly or jump-fly. It's also too narrow to host more than one pair of nesting Chimney Swifts but that pair don't seem to mind the cramped space. It's probably good for protection from predators.

My strategy is to provide an escape for native birds. In the summer, the shop door is left open for ventilation so small birds can get out through the vents in the stove and just fly to the open door (the windows are curtained so they don't fly into the glass as they once did).

If folks are educated, it should be easy to provide an escape. If the vents weren't big enough for birds to escape, I could easily make an insert for the potbelly's door with a hole big enough for Bluebirds to escape (but small enough to keep the EUST in until I can dispose of them). Most stovepipe chimneys are outside with a similar arrangement of horizontal pipe through the wall and down to the wood stove.
Those have a 'cleanout' T where the horizontal pipe meets the vertical chimney pipe. Provide an escape hole in the cleanout cover using 2" pipe nipple held in by a couple of flanges inside & out. Cap it when the stove is used and leave it open when it's not.

I host lots of birds and don't consider myself a 'Bluebirder.' I don't maintain a trail, just four clusters of boxes & gourds for Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and the occasional Chickadee, Wren or Crested Flycatcher pair. Lots of smaller boxes and gourds are in the trees and around the house for House Wrens (keeps 'em away from the Bluebird boxes), Nuthatches and such. I watch over an occupied Kestrel box that belongs to a rehaber from MaNassas. I may get 2 or 3 Bluebird pairs to successfully nest and fledge broods in a year.
Not many but it's what I have the time and resources to monitor and protect.

Take care,

R J 'Tree' Greenwood
Catlett VA

Charlene and Bluebirders:
One more note about Chimney Swift and I promise to just listen for a bit:

During the nesting season, Chimney Swift usually tolerate one pair per nesting site!
So, lots of chimneys required. Single brooded, once they've raised a family, others seem to be welcome, so a buildup of swifts occur. We see them fluttering about in groups over the neighborhood because there are quite a few chimneys around.
And they're really quite social - just not while we're busy raising a family.

Good birding, Larry H. Joplin (sw) MO.

Keith, When I read your post I immediately envisioned the old tobacco stripping room in one of the barns at the farm. I remembered it had one of those pot bellied iron stoves with a stove pipe, it hasn't been used in many years. As soon as I could I got to the farm and to check, and to my relief the door to the stove was ajar! Thankfully, there were no birds of any kind to be found. This room has enough crevices a bird could easily get out doors. Luckily due to some ones good thinking or absentminded neglect, no birds had to perish in this stove pipe. Thank you for keeping
us informed, I would never have thought of it otherwise. Lana

Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
As Larry and others mentioned only the steel flue pipe for wood burning stoves are REALLY dangerous to cavity nesters. Most masonry chimneys without flue tiles are rough enough for birds to climb back out and exit.
Many people CANNOT safely climb up and work on their own roofs! Half inch square grid hardware cloth is a good size heavy duty wire to have installed over the larger plastic and metal plumbing vent pipes on your roof. Have them wire these securely as squirrels sometimes pull these off. Squirrels sometimes fall or crawl down these drain pipe vents and die and can plug up sink, shower or other 2" drain lines in houses.

Make sure that there are no five gallon buckets or sprinkling cans sitting around your property half filled with water. Birds, especially just fledged babies can fall in them and drown.

Around wood duck (and other cavity nesting ducks) nestboxes make sure that right under the boxes that the landing area for the babies is fairly short grass and has no long thorns or dense area of blackberries for them to get caught in. If these birds nest far from water is there a path mowed through tall weeds so that the female can easily lead them to water?

Near your bluebird trail watch for open topped steel corner posts, gate posts and stretcher posts as these are often filled with water and become a trap. Colored roof metal can be cut and fit to match nearly every fence color and seal the tops of these posts. Some ranchers use old coffee cans to drop over the open tops of these posts to seal out the birds or rain water.
You can cut and bend the hardware cloth to wedge it tightly down inside these pipe.

The new PVC rail fences often have the square posts with one or more rails missing. Cavity nesters can enter these 1&1/2" wide slots made for the plastic rails and fall to the bottom of these slick walled square pipe. They make some heavy duty white plastic tape in 2" widths that can cover these slots for several years before needing to be replaced. You can cut a patch out of flat PVC and using self drilling TEK screws "semi-permanently" cover this open slot.

Check your nestbox fronts! Fronts that are split down through the entrance hole can catch the legs of the adult or young birds as they leave the box breaking leg bones. Use a latex caulk for outdoor use and caulk the cracks or replace the front of the nestbox.

Are there steel or plastic livestock watering tanks in your area? Owners of these tanks need to provide a floating board in these tanks so that when birds fall in they can climb up on the board and dry off a little and escape. Dead birds in a water tank will "foul" the drinking water for the livestock. A 12"x12" board or piece of closed cell Styrofoam will last a whole year in the water tank.

At fishing areas have them post on bulletin boards the dangers of monofilament fishing line. Many species of wildlife get caught up in this line that fishermen strip off of their reels!

Can stray cats or dogs be trapped and carried to a Humane Society in your area? Make sure your vet has a handout on the numbers of birds killed by cats. Encourage neuter or spayed pets.

Tobacco barn wood burning heaters were found to contain 300>500 cavity nesters that had died in a single season in the past. Most of these old heaters were replaced with gas or electric heaters in the 1970's.

Plumbers, roofing companies, seamless gutter companies, chimney sweeps, carpenters, insurance adjusters and a whole host of do-it-yourselfers will be climbing up on roofs all across your area this week. IF you copy parts of the posts on this subject you could spread the word throughout the construction community. Posting these warnings at feedmills, lumber stores, Wild Bird type stores and fax or e-mail them to your local contractors and county extension office. Encourage them to copy and give these to their customers. Encourage those who often are on rooftops to cover unsafe vents or steel chimney flue pipe. Make it a point to contractors that while they are "already" up there on that roof that they could help the birds and make another $40 everytime they climb up on a new roof! Make it a point that covering those vents might save the homeowners a $175 roto-rooter job from their local plumber!

Don't forget landscape companies that install trees and the plastic "tree tubes" to protect young tree trunks from animals chewing the trunks and sun scald. Cavity nesters often die when they hop down in these slick "plastic tubes".

All Wal-Marts have bulletin boards, nearly all lumber centers have "do-it-yourself" workshops. Anywhere people sit and wait they could use something interesting to read! Even Oil change shops would be a good place to warn people about the dangers of wildlife killed by pouring out old anti-freeze containing ethylene glycol which is a deadly poison to wildlife that a quart of used motor oil can cover thousands of square feet of water.

You might also want to include a couple of instruction sheets for building and maintaining nestboxes and promoting your state bluebird society, NABS and Cornell University.

You could target each different location by say putting the "cats killing birds" as the number one issue in a pet supply or vet office. In the Chimney sweeps and insurance adjuster handout installing the "spark arrestor" on the metal flue pipe and the numbers of house fires caused by chimney fires would top the list ETC for the rest of the contractors. For example include for gutter installers that the "plastic rolled up" water diverter on the bottoms of rain gutters does not allow trapped birds to escape when they fall down rain gutters without leaf guard screens installed at the roof edge.

You don't have to put up thousands of nestboxes to save thousands of birds.
A single information sheet on a bulletin board might save more birds than what we end up raising this year! There is a whole host of other subjects like "Windows", pesticides, rotten grain, dirty bird baths, BB guns ETC.
Pick and choose what pertains to your area!KK

BEST OF BLUEBIRD_L CLASSIFIEDS HOME | Audubon Society of Omaha | The Bluebird Box | Bluebird FAQs | Search | Contact me

All material was originally posted on the Bluebird_L or Bluebird mailing list, and has been reposted here with slight modifications to make the posts more readable in an HTML format.  In cases in which quoted material has been deleted to save space, this is indicated by an ellipsis (...)

For more information about Bluebird_L, check out http://www.cit.corn.edu/cit-pubs/email/using-lists/index.htm. If you wish to contact the author of a post, you will need to edit the e-mail address, replacing "at" with the "at" symbol (above the number 2 on your keyboard). (This change was made to discourage spammers.)

If you are the author of a posting and would like to see a particular post (or posts) removed from these web pages, please contact me with the web page address, title of post, and date and time of the post(s), and I will remove whatever material you like.  If you have a different opinion from one posted here, you need not contact me, as often I will have a different opinion too. The intent is to try and provide both sides to the issues facing bluebirders, and to do so in an impartial and objective manner.

If you have problems, encounter broken links (unless they are within an e-mail thread, as I do not maintain those links), or have suggestions on how the site can be improved to make it more useful, please contact the Best of Bluebird-L Classifieds webmaster. 

Website design by Chimalis