The deed was finally done. The HY purple martin that was found at the Davie roost was peacefully euthanized over the weekend. With a broken shoulder and no hope of rehabilitation he was put down.

Then yesterday on a non purple martin note, one of my gouldian finches was on the verge of death. Egg bound and with her eyes closed, I picked her up off the cage floor and after almost 20 minutes of warm steam, mineral oil and gentle massage, she expelled the egg.  I totally blame myself as I had not been giving her egg shells to eat. Today she is a bit greasy looking but chirping and flying about her cage. I even watched her take a bath.

At the colony here, the purple martins were busy dive bombing a large hawk that was painting lazy circles directly over the housing. I am sure it was on the look out for fledglings. The heat index was well into the hundreds. 110 in some locations and was just miserable. I stayed in and watched from air conditioned comfort.

Tags: folke peterson, hawk, heat, Purple martins

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Fledgelings, Purple martins, predators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.