Doctoral student Jessica Hite has teamed with local Sassafras Audubon Society (SAS) and IU colleagues to provide breeding habitat for Chimney Swifts (Chaetura pelagica), small gray birds whose playful-appearing flight patterns have earned them the nickname “dolphins of the sky.” “Swifts in the City” also engages multiple groups in environmental education and will contribute to long-term local and national monitoring programs.
Swift tower construction is an effort to reverse the species’ population decline. Many towers are needed because only one pair of birds breeds at each site—despite the fact that hundreds of swifts may share the same space for resting at night. This behavior, combined with the decrease in “swift-friendly” chimneys, is one of many threats facing the species.
Each of the 12-foot “Swifts in the City” towers can provide a home for about 250 swifts and a nesting site for one pair.
The project has brought together volunteers from SAS and Stone Belt (organization supporting individuals with developmental disabilities) as well as local craftspeople, schools, teachers, businesses, the Bloomington Department of Parks and Recreation, and scouting groups. SAS has funded three towers.
Support for the “Swifts in the City” project is funded in part by an Elinor Ostrom Program Grant awarded to Hite. Distinguished Professor Ellen Ketterson, an avian biologist, serves as faculty sponsor of the project.
Jessica Hite defended her dissertation “Feedbacks between host stage structure and parasites: two case studies of disease in amphibians and plankton” in May 2016. She received her Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology & Behavior. Professor Spencer Hall served as her graduate advisor.
The College of Arts