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Feb 10, 2008
An adult male purple martin arrived today and its cold outside. Once again we have to hurry to put up housing in the bad weather. He's here way too early. I've moved last year's blog to the history page and updated our site data for 2007.
Feb 16, 2008
We thought the purple martin had left - returned south where it would be warmer. But, No - it is raining out and 33 degrees. Its also been hailing. He looks cold, wet and pitiful. Harold went out to try to feed him some crickets and june bugs (frozen from last summer). He definately is one of our birds from last year - as soon as Harold walked out on the deck, here he came. He caught 6 out of 6 bugs right off the bat. Harold tossed bugs to him a couple of more times during the day - this should hold over until tomorrow when the temperature is to get up in the 50's.
Mar 16, 2008
We put up the other two houses and 5 gourds. We thought we had about 12 birds - its closer to 2 dozen. We've left the rooms on the north side closed. We currently have 50 cavities.
Mar 26, 2008
My parents were in town so we did a nest check - not much nesting activity yet. There are a lot of birds though. I've counted around 60. We opened up the back rooms on the T11 and T14. Total cavities: 56.
Apr 6, 2008
We checked the houses today - it has been a while. We have 14 nests. While the houses were down, we opened up the last 6 rooms, added a feeder with oyster shells and layed out nesting material. The cameras are the only item remaining on our to-do list. Total cavities: 62.
Apr 12, 2008
Harold has hooked up the martin cameras. Its too windy to do a nest check.
Apr 19, 2008
The nest cam worked one day and died. We replaced the camera but something still isn't right. It looks out of focus, but Harold thinks it may be interference. I'm not sure what we will try next - I don't think we have another camera. Today we saw our first sub-adult. He could have been around for a few days, but we'll register today as the 'official' date. During our nest check, we found our first egg. Woo Hoo!!! 48 nests; 1 egg.
Apr 24, 2008
We found a dead martin during today's nest check. It had been attacked by a starling. This was the second martin to die because of starling attacks. 50 nests; 16 eggs.
May 3, 2008
We found another dead martin during today's nest check. 56 nests; 163 eggs.
May 11, 2008
We have babies!! 61 nests; 245 eggs; 9 hatchlings.
May 17, 2008
All rooms now have a nest: 62 nests; 162 eggs; 83 hatchlings. In the last couple of nest checks we have removed 18 eggs because either the egg wasn't going to hatch or the nest had been abandoned. I compared this year's nest checks with last years and on 5/17/2007, we only had 16 hatchlings so far. Last year was a tough year - we've had beautiful weather so far this year.
May 17, 2008
All rooms now have a nest: 62 nests; 162 eggs; 83 hatchlings. In the last couple of nest checks we have removed 18 eggs because either the egg wasn't going to hatch or the nest had been abandoned. I compared this year's nest checks with last years and on 5/17/2007, we only had 16 hatchlings so far. Last year was a tough year - we've had beautiful weather so far this year.
2008 Update
We didn't have a good ending to our 2008 season - between vacations and Harold having surgery, we weren't able to keep up with the nest checks. On the last nest check we
attempted, a couple of the fledglings got scared and flew before they were physically ready. We decided to leave the birds alone after that. Our final count is an
estimate: 231 fledged purple martins.
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