The last nest of 2 martin fledglings (which were a complete surprise) fledged the same day that Bonnie was supposed to dump rain all along the coast. Fortunately for some, the rain was more of a short drizzle but amazingly the purple martins seemed to know something was up.

Every morning our colony would get a faithful dozen or so visitors that would sit on the housing and chatter away. By about 11 AM they would leave only to return again the next morning. But the day after Bonnie not a purple feather was to be seen. Many speculate that birds, being so sensitive to changes in barometric pressures and the weather , could avoid bad weather by delaying migration to an area of poor weather or vice versa. Could it be coincidence?

According to Melvin L. Kreithen and William T. Keeton of the Division of Biological Sciences, Langmuir Laboratory, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,(23 October 1973) Homing pigeons were able to to detect air pressure changes. As purple martin landlords can tell you, a purple martins homing ability is at the very least equal to that of a homing pigeon. So the correlation is fair.

By any account, the season is over here in South Florida and all martins have left.

The factors that affect a birds migration are complex and not completely understood. Click this article for Neotropical Migratory Bird Basics from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. If you want to learn more about Neotropical Migratory Birds read this article on Birds Built-in Barometer.

Not that my birds needed a Tropical Storm to end their party, migratory birds know when it is time to go based on known factors such as the length of day and for some types of birds, even star patterns. There is nothing to be done for purple martins (or any other migratory bird-for that matter) that linger on. Some folks will tell you to lower or remove housing, but don’t bother. Just like the old wives tales that persist that tell hummingbird aficionados to remove hummingbird feeders to push hummers to migrate, nothing needs to be done.

So keep the feeders full, leave the housing up till you feel like it. Birds have been migrating for a long time and the only thing we need to do for them is support them, by way of a beak full of nectar, a belly full of seed or perhaps a dry place to sleep at night.

Roosts can form under bridges, in trees or reed beds. You can find them in big cities or small towns, in bustling areas or in the middle of nowhere. They are sometimes well lit to keep predators at bay but can also be in the most secluded of areas.

The Purple Martin Conservation Association’s Project MartinRoost is dedicated to documenting roost locations and preserving them. You can look up roosts that have been reported in your area by visiting their Project MartinRoost Page.

I found this interesting picture , posted with permission of the photographer (Joe Levins of Wetumpka, Alabama) of a colony site is being used for a small martin roost. It started around the first of June and has increased in number each day since. According to the landlord, Joe, last year they also roosted there, but did not start until after the first of July.

Southern Patriot

If you live in South Carolina and with an extra $27 dollars to spare, you can take a 2 1/2 hour cruise on The Southern Patriot” (that’s a 65 foot cruise boat) which will take you out to historic Bomb Island, where hundreds of thousands of Purple Martins roost on the largest Purple Martin sanctuary in North America. During the cruise you will hear narration about the Purple Martins and about the historic significance of how this island was used for bombing practice by Jimmy Doolittle prior to his raid on Tokyo during WWII. Don’t worry if you get thirsty as light refreshments are  served. Interested? Call the Lake Murray Marina in Ballentine, SC at: 803-749-8594

If you want to learn more about purple martin roosts you can also visit:

Coastal Carolina Purple Martin Society (Manns Harbor Purple Martin Roost)

Tulsa Audubon Society

The Red Shouldered hawks nest close by and protect this as their territory from other hawks. If that can be counted as protection…I am not too sure.

Night time is quiet and I am not sure if many martins are returning to the nests to roost at night. They may have moved on to a local assembly area or pre-migratory roost. The fact that I am talking about the roosts already almost sounds crazy! Can time have flown by so fast? I guess I will start planning another trip to the roost in Davie this year.  It has almost been exactly a year since I went to see it and video taped it. You can see it at my blog post titled Purple Martin Pre-Migratory Roost Spectacular. It is a great YouTube clip taken at the roost with swarms of purple martins.

The webcam will not be up again for the remainder of this year as the computer I had it running on is dead. I plan on replacing it as soon as I can and it will be up again next January. I promise.

©2010 PurpleMartinArt.com / S.Halpin

I appreciate all the well wishes I have received and it is probably for the best as I knew that the  bird was beyond any hope of freedom ever again. It is good to know, however that the 2 babies are doing fine. Ellen, from Wildlife Resource Center of the Palm Beaches, has been returning my calls ever faithfully and tells me that the 2 are doing great, eating up a storm and are on track to be released in several week

Though some SY males have succeeded in winning over a handful of gourds, all but 2 of my 31 gourds have eggs or babies.

I drive by several know locations of vacant purple martin housing and see no evidence of martins and know that just some minor tweaking of the location of the house is all that stands in the way of quite a few folks getting martins. After 2 seasons now of mailing fliers to neighborhood wannabe landlords, I have only heard back from a handful.

In the meantime, I continue to turn away purple martins into the night. I could put up another rack next year but I would much rather show a few how to turn their empty martin houses into active colonies.

Other bird news brings 2 fledgling Mockingbirds fluttering about the yard, a family of Common Grackles that I am not sure where they are nesting and a recently fledged Red Tailed hawk being shown the gourd racks this morning by its mother. Sadly a pair of Greater Crested Flycatchers is nowhere to be seen after they started nesting in the recently vacated Screech Owl box. I believe a Horned Owl returned to the box as I found a large Owl feather clinging to the front of the nest box the same day the Flycatchers disappeared. Now to fashion Owl guards for that nest box.

Today I found the first casualty and my nest check results show that several nests have been affected by these SY males. The first tip off is a compartment previously claimed by a ASY pair is now protected by a SY male. Eggs or nestlings on the ground are dead give aways of course and the bickering and fighting can get intense. Though unless witnessed, you may never really know what was the cause of eggs or nestlings that mysteriously disappear, in the absence of sparrows and starlings, one can assume that SY’s play a part.

Can something be done about this? Well, many people wait until the SY males arrival to open up some of their housing. Others put up temporary type housing to alleviate some of the nest site competition like the Trendsetter Create-A-Rack Arms that  can be added on to your telescopic pole to make an affordable and easy spot to hang a few extra gourds in a pinch. Still others may yell and shoo those pesky SY males away.

In the grand scheme I suppose I tolerate this behavior in my colony as the ugly harsh reality of survival. If a ASY male is off guard and not protecting his mate and nest, his gene pool suffers. Those males that are dutiful in their jobs as protectors can drive away would be dangers and their off spring survives. It is a hard thing to witness and if I witness the tossing of a nestling I will intervene and return it to its nest. Is that what National Geographic would do if they were filming a documentary? No, they would probably film it happening and talk about the harsh reality of nature and watch death come slowly. Is that interfering with nature? Or is it our nature to interfere?

Nest Check Results:

Total Eggs: 34

Total Young: 124

Found Dead: 1

Pairs: 36

©S.Halpin/PurpleMartinArt.com 2010

Usually I enjoy her writing immensely, but while reading this one I found myself at first feeling defensive of my hobby but then quite protective of my “pets”.

I responded to her blog post,

“The only part I don’t agree with is about how European settlers began this birds dependence on humans. It has been documented that Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians would hang up dried gourds for these birds and according to the Purple Martin Conservation Association, the purple martin has undergone in the last several hundred years, a tradition shift where they no longer recognize natural tree snags as nest sites. Are they pets? I understand you argument there, but as a purple martin landlord I take pride in keeping this bird safely off the endangered species list, which according to the PMCA, would probably be the case had humans not taken to putting up housing.”

Us landlords are familiar with the story of the history of Purple Martins. For those that don’t know the history of purple martins a great article is at the PMCA website.

Though Sharon sees our meddling in the affairs of purple martins as interfering with natural selection, I see it as a continuing of a symbiotic relationship with these birds that gave up their natural ways to help us. Though we don’t need them to warn us of vultures or birds of prey that are trying to eat Buffalo meat hung up to dry, or to chase crows from crop fields or even as natural flying insect control anymore; I find it comforting to know that I am fulfilling the promise made by those Native Americans so many years ago. That though we, as the human race, may have outlived the usefulness of Purple Martins in a practical sense, that we will stand by what we began.

Maybe Ms. Stiteler will reconsider her stance?

In Apple Creek Ohio at the Yoder colony, the season started normal enough. Their 50 pairs of martins were devastated however, by a 4th of July cold spell that killed 50 purple martin nestlings. An ASY female showed up at their site in mid August. The Yoders did not believe the female was from their site due to the fact that she had a recently fledged youngster that she was still caring for and no recently fledged young from their site. They witnessed the female bringing in nesting material into a compartment in the middle of September.

On November 1st, 2009 was the last sighting of the females offspring. Whether he followed the instinct to fly South, succumbed to the weather or was killed by a hawk, we do not know. Only that after that date the ASY female was alone.

The Yoder’s conditioned her to accept supplemental feedings by tossing meal worms into the air. They fed her approximately 50 meal  worms each day. Feeding her 5 times a day- about 10 meal worms at a feeding.

She survived 7 inches of snow on Jan 3, 2010 and 0°F  (ZERO DEGREES !) temperatures. And like this she was accepting feedings and was chirping up until January 10, 2010. At the last sighting on that date she was seen sitting on the front porch of the compartment she was using. The compartments were checked and no remains were found. Did she finally migrate? Did she fall victim to a hawk attack? We will never know.

The final news on this amazing story are both sad and not. That she survived that long is an amazing testament to the lengths that purple martin landlords will go to to protect “their” birds. A curiosity that makes one wonder how new behavioral patterns are evolved in a bird that has shown one huge evolutionary transitional shift already. But on the other hand, if in fact she did perish, how would the perpetuation of this behavior ultimately serve purple martins as a whole?

Check out PurpleMartins-R-Us.com for more information on Purple Martins including supplemental feeding of Adult Purple Martins. There you will even find a video of martins being fed.

I think the forked tail is why I enjoy watching these birds so much. Any bird with the name of “swallow” is a favorite. Though I have seen these birds snatch a dove nestling out of a nest. So don’t get too close!

Baby Sandhill cranes are flightless for quite some time and the parents are not so bright. Every year there have been several chicks either hit by cars or mauled by dogs. My theory is let them stay wild and do not put food out for them.
Though this may sound odd coming from a person that puts up purple martin houses and gourds every year, I think that these Sandhill cranes do much better being afraid of us.

On this day 5 Sandhill cranes were just a few feet from the window of my car. I happened to have my camera and this is one of the shots I got. They were eating corn from a plate left out for them by well meaning humans. Remember, there are people that hunt Sandhill cranes. Why would we want them to trust us?