Purple Martin season all but over.
The latest "my" martins have been here was Aug. 10. Today is the 12th, and as I was lowering the rack to start the clean up, about 12 martins came zooming in from nowhere, chattering and flying around the air space above me. I guess it's not over till the fat martins sing!
They are finished with nesting and fledging and are no longer coming in the gourds at night.
My final stats aren't as good as normal this year. A hawk killed one of the females a couple days before her five eggs should have hatched. While the male bird will feed and fledge chicks on his own, he cannot incubate them so all five eggs died.
This year I hung 14 gourds on the 16-arm rack. One gourd was, and still is, waiting for the new tunnel to be caulked in. (Hiding my face in shame!)
I had 12 active pair of Purple Martins. They laid 65 eggs in 12 gourds.
9 of the 65 eggs did not hatch. Four of these were from four different nests and contained partially developed embryos. The other five are the ones that lost the female martin.
65 eggs laid.
56 chicks hatched.
54 chicks fledged.
One dead chick was injured severely and pulled out of the nest. This was the hawk again.
I just checked all the empty nests. Gourd 9 had the sad, dried remains of a chick about the same age (15 days old) as the one that was pulled out and tossed on the ground. Hawk.
Fat and happy and about 9 days old.
Even fatter, and happier than they appear! (A photo from a past year; I didn't get too many taken this summer.) This was one of my first nests with 7 chicks!
This is why I do it. A few new babies read to take on the world.
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Comments (2)Sounds and looks like a neat place. I have never been birding outside the United States but that looks neat. Thanks for the tip. I wonder if there are starlings there?? Probably darn it grin..suckers have spread all over the globe now it seems except like maybe Antarctica or the far north. I wish they would all go there from the United States anyway and maybe freeze solid before they realized they went too far south. My trap had another one in it this very morning and it was great to see him behind bars as I sipped my morning coffee while watching my now 20 martins all over the gourds smile...Mike...See MoreYellow and purple all season bloom?
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Comments (3)Oh yes! Photos will be showing up soon. Some of them will look like this! LOL This photo is from 2012; I already had eggs hatching on June 15 of that year. The eggs I have now won't hatch until about July 7....See MorePurple Martin fledging starting
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- 9 years ago
bob_cville