Things to Do

Jonestown’s Swift Fest: Art, Music, and … Chimney Swifts?

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Tony Maples Photography

 

A weather-worn cistern sitting in the middle of downtown Jonestown has been the summer home of some real Texas Hill Country celebrities for decades. This Saturday, August 27th, that small town on Lake Travis is throwing its annual party in the chimney swifts’ honor, and you’re invited!

Single Chimney Swift Flying

Photo: Facebook/Jonestown Swift Fest

Jonestown has been a favorite stop on the chimney swifts’ annual migration from Canada to Peru for decades. Known as “the flying cigars”, the small dark birds begin arriving in mid-March, feasting on insects all day (one swift can eat thousands a day – thus their celebrity status in the grateful lakeside community) then swooping tornado-like into the cistern at dusk to roost. At the end of September, they continue on their migratory way.

The sight and sound of their nightly return is amazing to behold, and in 2012 the city decided it should share it with the world in order to educate the public and help protect the swifts. With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the nearby Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, Swift Fest was born.

Mini Firemen

Photo: Facebook/Jonestown Swift Fest

The festival begins at 4:30, taking over the area behind the city offices and extending into Fireman’s Park with live music, food, nature-themed vendors, and games and activities for all ages.

Wildlife conservation partners from the Texas Hill Country will have booths to show what they are doing to protect wildlife, and there will be stations offering fun activities to help learn about birds and migration. They include an obstacle course, life-sized swift wings to try on, selfies with a swift, a reptile show, and Phoenix, the Eurasian Eagle Owl.

Festival

Photo: Facebook/Jonestown Swift Fest

Be sure to check out the handcrafted artwork offered for sale, appropriately including handcrafted bird feeders, birdhouses, and bat houses. And don’t worry about getting hungry – there will be plenty of food vendors offering everything from burgers and tacos to gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread, as well as water, soft drinks, and adult beverages.While you’re shopping and eating and learning and playing, enjoy a great line-up of live music: Jackie Venson, Eve and the Exiles, the John Gaar Band, and David Pulkingham.

Swift Drop

Photo: Facebook/Jonestown Swift Fest

When dusk draws near, the festival will move to the 100-year-old cistern, located across F.M. 1431 behind the Jones and Carter Realty office. The families have been in the area for decades; the office was originally a ranch house, and the cistern, which they still own, provided water to it.  Thanks to them, it has been preserved as the swifts’ summer home.

Travis Audubon takes an official census of the birds as they come in to roost, but Friends of the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge hosts “The Swift Drop”, a contest to see which three festival-goers can most accurately predict the official number, which has ranged from a high of 2400 in 2003 to a low of 13 in 2013. If word has spread in the swift community that Lake Travis is back to normal levels, there should be thousands of swifts enjoying the lake life again this summer.

Swing Clinging to Wall

Photo: Facebook/Jonestown Swift Fest

Fun Facts about Chimney Swifts:

  • Chimney swifts don’t perch – they use their long claws to cling to the walls of chimneys and similar vertical surfaces.
  • They are always flying, only stopping when at the nest or on the roost at night. They even bathe by flying low over body of water and touching it with their chest, then shaking the water from their feathers.
  • A group of swifts is known as a box, screaming frenzy, or swoop
  • Swifts and hummingbirds have the shortest legs of all birds.
  • During breeding season, they build nests of twigs on vertical surfaces using saliva as glue.

Jonestown is located on F.M. 1431 nine miles west of U.S. 183 in Cedar Park.  Just follow the signs to Swift Fest! For more information about the festival, go to www.swiftfest-jonestown.com

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