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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Yellow and purple all season bloom?
Comments (2)I found a beautiful purslane, it's yellow with a pink center, it bloomed it's little head off, does not need dead heading or water everyday like some plants. Another plant you might like is a desert rose, this would need to be brought in for winter but so worth having, doesn't not need much water. I don't know how large of an area you have but from the quantity of plants on your list I'm thinking it's large. One thing to keep in mind when using containers, these dry out faster but you can put mulch on top to help also bare in mind that dark colors heat up while light color pot's stay cooler, plastic is best, taracotta dries out unless you spray the inside with pruning spray that's for trees or paint the inside. Anything staying outside over winter would need plastic. Roses do well in pots too. You could be some of the mini roses, carpet roses or knockout roses and they can stay outside year around. Daylilies can be kept in pots too and man are there some beauties, narrowing it down to just a few might be hard but if you like yellow's and purples I think you'd be very happy with a few. There are some daylilies that get up to 3 feet tall so you could hind the pot behind other potted plants and have the daylily flower looming above the others. The daylily cannot be planted with others in a pot the roots need the room. Doing annuals that reseed is good but this would not work out well if your patio does not get rain water. This is what seeds rely on for growing next year. Although if your able to remember to water often it might work. I know I didn't stay within your color request but just thought I'd let you know there's lots of thing's you can grow in containers that you might not have been aware of. Hope you hear from you next spring on how the patio garden is going. Barb Here is a link that might be useful: detailed information on desert rose adenium odesum...See MoreMy Purple Martin colony is growing! LOL
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Comments (3)Sorry Linda...I use too much jargon. Wait till my "AF Veteran" kicks in! LOL HOSP is English House Sparrow. The non-native scourge of all our native cavity nesters. ASY is an "After Second Year" Purple Martin. It's an adult. The year they hatch they are called HYs. Hatching Years. This fall my HYs will migrate to southern Brazil. When they come back next spring they will have their juvenile coloring and be called SY (Second Years) although they are now only one year old. It's the second year they've been in northern American though. A few SY females will breed and nest. An even smaller number of SY males may breed. Then next fall the SYs (2010) they again migrate back to Brazil and molt into their finally adult plumage. When they come back again, (Spring 2011) they will be fully mature, ready to successfully bred and be called ASYs....See Morecaroline94535
6 years agocaroline94535
6 years ago
bob_cville