Yes, I'm ranting about the Purple Martins again! They consume most of my time and mental and physical energy in the early spring. It's an absolute roller-coaster ride, and I love it, 99.9% of the time.

This post covers that other .1% of the time.

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I'm sorry this is long. I couldn't describe the tragedy any other way. WARNING...It does get a bit graphic...bird death, "bugs", and attacks.

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The Purple Martins stayed close to the front yard Tuesday. They were content and chatty. It was rainy and cool with long stretches of sunshine. A beautiful day.

The three SY (Second Year = immature) males were fighting; some females were fighting; but not violently. The usual squabbles. I still have two empty gourds and three "bachelors' pads" so that keeps the battles mild.

At 3:30 p.m. everything was calm and happy. Wes came home from work and I didn't check the birds again for about 45 minutes.

When I next looked out the window there was a martin lying on the ground directly under Gourds 2 and 11, about 2 ft. from the pole. Our front lawn is cut very short; it's easy to see everything on the ground. She was not there at 3:30 p.m.

I went to check out the situation. She was dead, stiff dead, in rigor. There were no obvious injuries. No blood; no cracked skull; no skin tears. (Injuries typical of HOSP attacks). I picked her up and then jumped in horror. There were teeny-tiny maggots moving along the side of her body. They were less and 1/8" long and very thin; they must have just hatched.

Putting on my deer-slayer hat, I could only come up with the idea that she had died in the gourd yesterday or this morning (?) and another martin had tossed her out.

There was no sign of violence in any of the gourds; no eggs were smashed or missing. I could hear the colony while I was away from the window for the 45 minutes in question. There were no distress calls. No sparrows or starlings around.

She could not have fallen, died, gone into rigor, and had a maggot hatch (at 65 degrees) in less than one hour.

I checked Gourds 2 and 11. Gourd 2 has had only two eggs since my first egg-check of June 4. They were still in the gourd, but completely buried at the bottom of the thick nesting material. Gourd 11 has had five eggs since June 6.

I will try to watch the Gourds 2 and 11 extra close tomorrow to see if female martins go into each gourd.

I did witness a "forced copulation" event yesterday. A female martin was on the neighbor's roof, across the street, when she was attacked by five males. She got back to the gourd rack in just a minute or two.

It was the first time in seven years of martineering that I have seen this less-than-charming PM behavior. But then, this is the first year I've had more than one single SY male, too.

I've consulted with several veteran PM landlords, all with more knowledge than I ever hope to have. Some of their ideas will be in Part 2.