The Garden Tower is a wooden tower with inside walls of Textured 1-11 siding with the grooves running horizontally.  It measures 11" x 11" inside, measures 8' tall and stands on 2' tall angle steel legs set in a 3'x 3' x 6" concrete slab.  The top opening is reduced to 11" x 5" and located on the north side.  It was originally a single-walled tower.  However, due to problems with over-heating, a second skin with an insulated space was installed in 2000.  Nesting success since that time has been sporadic.  We now believe that this small tower is inadequate for the needs of Chimney Swifts.

Of the 150 species of birds that have been documented (including "fly-overs") thirty-six species of birds have been documented nesting on or near the sanctuary, including Turkey Vultures that utilized a small cave in the depths of the canyon in 2003.  One of the two babies is pictured above.  The sibling retreated to the safety of the cave when the photograph was taken.   Following is a complete list of breeding avian species to date:

Wood Duck
Turkey Vulture
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Inca Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Greater Roadrunner
Eastern Screech-Owl
Chuck-will's-widow
Chimney Swift
Black-chinned Hummingbird
Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
Purple Martin
Blue Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
Carolina Chickadee
Black-crested Titmouse
Canyon Wren
Carolina Wren
Bewick's Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Golden-cheeked Warbler
Summer Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Painted Bunting
Rufous-crowned Sparrow
Common Grackle
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
House Sparrow