Tower to be dedicated to Batavia alderman who loved birds

When permission was given to demolish the Batavia Bowl last year, Alderman Linnea Miller was worried about some of its occupants.

Where would the chimney swifts live once the Bowl's chimney was knocked down?

At 4 p.m. June 11, a solution will be dedicated in her memory.

A 12-foot-tall chimney swift tower has been built on the east side of Shumway Avenue, south of First Street, by Batavia Enterprises, in cooperation with the City of Batavia and the Batavia Park District.

"She loved those birds," said Julie Kotalik, a spokesman for Batavia Enterprises. Miller and her husband liked to come down to the riverside to watch the birds, nicknamed "flying cigars" for their shape and color, fly in and out of the chimney, zoom around the air and dive at the river to bathe.

Miller died Jan. 12 of breast cancer.

According to the Cornell University ornithology laboratory website, allaboutbirds.org, chimney swifts used to nest and perch in caves and on hollow trees. They especially like tall things. As European people settled North America and built buildings with chimneys, the birds moved in to those, increasing in population. The birds cling to the walls.

A nesting pair will build a half-saucer-shaped nest of twigs and saliva, and glue it to the inside of the chimney with saliva. Typically only one nesting pair is found in a chimney, but hundreds of other birds are allowed to share the chimney.

The birds are losing their favored homes, however, as older buildings are knocked down, and modern chimneys have covered, narrower flues.

Batavia Enterprises, which owns the site of the Batavia Bowl, has no plans to build other towers, Kotalik said.