I was just outside letting my dog out for his last foray of the night. The air is perfectly comfortable and a perfect South Florida night. The neighborhood Chucks Will-widow is calling out in its haunting and beautiful call. My son who was up all night with a 103 fever seems back on the mend. All is right with the world. 

Friday I will be doing a nest check. Looking at my watch I see it IS Friday so this is not much of a heads up. Since several nests are due to hatch, I will probably do another check come Sunday. (Just for fun!) Sometime between 3pm and 5pm EST, the usual time.  Of course, you can watch me on the Birdcam and laugh at me, if you like.  Also, the nestcam has one egg hatched so far and 4 more eggs at any moment.

Their are several starlings that are regularly feeding in my yard every morning. I have made feeble attempts with my pellet gun, to no avail. My aim is ridiculously bad and every time I squeeze off a shot, I blush with shame. Both from my bad aim and the picture I make, out in the yard in my bathrobe, morning hair and a pellet gun. The neighbors at least have free entertainment. I even have put out my home made wire bait trap which I used last season as a holding cage for the starlings. It is even more poorly made than my repeating nest trap. The starlings have no interest however in the popcorn and cereal I have placed inside. I will persist though. Should I ever manage to catch something with the trap, my husband owes me a sushi dinner. Yesterday evening I saw a lone starling perched on the phone line stalking my colony. Fortunately I am using SREH (starling resistant entrance holes) so my birds are safe, for the most part.

On another bird note. The mocking bird fledgling is almost indistinguishable from its parents. It follows its parents in the yard. Silently doing their wing displays as they scurry from spot to spot on the lawn. I only see the one fledgling which speaks volumes on the survival rate of these brush nesting birds. The neighbors which have at least 2 cats are constantly on the prowl. My dog has chased them out of my yard and away from the purple martin poles on numerous occasions. I am not sure how I will address the issue come fledge time but if I have to chase cats, I will. Another reason to call me a crazy bird lady. All I need now is a little more gray hair.

Blog contents/photos © 2009 S.Halpin/PurpleMartinArt.com

Before I opened our business PurpleMartins-R-Us.com, I did what many people do that want to try their hand at Purple Martins. I went out and purchased an inexpensive plastic house. With the cheap house came a cheap triangular pole, and with the cheap pole came a cheap feeder/platform tray that slides over the pole.

Last year I had big problems with egg shells sliding down the inner opening of the platform feeder and sliding down in between the pole sections. What resulted was severe sticking of the pole. So when I attempted to circumvent this issue this year by gluing a barrier around the opening, I was confident it would succeed. NOT! My gorilla glue lasted about 2 months in the sun and came unglued allowing the bits of shell to slide, once again, down the inner hole and in between the pole sections. What resulted was the delay of nest checks on the Sunset Inn house and today’s story.

As you may or may not realize, I do not sell these triangular poles on my site. I had a gourd rack on a triangular pole that I phased out this year with the new Economy 12 gourd rack and I am sorry I did not go ahead and phase the triangular poles out in their entirety. It has been a continued headache.

I greatly underestimated my desire to hoist up a telescopic pole every few days. Last year one of the plastic tabs that keeps the triangular telescopic pole locked in place broke and I had to use a long bolt in the opening to extend the pole. One pole bent about 10 degrees in a thunderstorm and one developed a very slight bend that made bringing the pole up and down difficult. Then of course there was the problem of the egg shells getting inside the pole sections. I can assure you that next year all my poles will be pulley operated.

What does this all mean to someone that wants to get into Purple Martins without spending SEVERAL hundred dollars? One can easily spend upwards of $500 to $1000 (and more) for a sweet purple martin set up. Does this mean that you should NOT try your hand at purple martins? No, it only means that if you choose to go the frugal way into the hobby do not be surprised if within a few years you find yourself wishing you had a sweet tricked out Purple Martin set up. Do not feel badly that your cheap system has let you down. You may just find that you have outgrown it.

So what do I have on my triangular pole? I placed my aluminum Sunset Inn house on it with a custom made mounting plate. It seems to be hanging in there just fine. It’s my arms that are giving out. And other than the egg shell pain in my noodle, it will serve out this season (I hope) with honor. Finally after a can of WD-40 and much prying and wiggling and banging it came free. 3 delayed nest checks later I was finally able to lower the Sunset Inn and check it and the 2 gourds hanging under it. What did I find? Both gourds have eggs, a total of 7 more for the count and the house itself has eggs but I don’t know how many. “Why is that?”, you ask. Look and see.

This is why I love these birds. Stupid? No, she knew it was me. I was fooling with the pole for some minutes, calling out to my husband and when I heard a rustling and looked, there she sat. Calm and trusting. Watching me and knowing. Partners we are. Tethered and wild. Human and not. Surface dweller and flying free. Working together by the grace of God and under His watchful eye. How can one not want to put up a Purple Martin house?

 (c) Blog contents copyright 2009 S.Halpin/PurpleMartinArt.com

I have never really thought of myself as a birder. I mean, geez, growing up in South Florida in a basically urban environment, there were not many opportunities for me to feed my hidden bird loving tendencies.  House Sparrows and Rock Pigeons were the basic “bird de jour” in my backyard. The mockingbird and doves would make a token visit and the glimpse of a Blue Jay or red-bellied woodpecker was enough to send me flying to my diary. As a young girl all ‘black’ birds were the same, but even in this un-exotic location I was observant enough to see that there was a big bird world out there. Beyond my 80 x 100 backyard, I knew there were birds I only saw pictured in books. So it went until I moved to the semi rural area I now call home.

Every morning I look out my bedroom window and look out back. A quick glance at the Purple Martins to assure myself that they are in fact still there. I often find myself accidentally birding. Like the time I saw my first Pileated Woodpecker out on the Purple Martins favorite slash pine. Or the Red-Headed Woodpecker that I only see a few times per year, the Flickers, the Eastern Phoebes, the Blue-Gray GnatCatchers, the Bronze-Headed Cowbirds and of course the plethora of Ibis, Egrets, Herons, and other marsh birds that frequent the area.

Today was no different. I was amazed by a simple visit to the Purple Martin Gourd rack by a Red-Winged Blackbird. The Martins were all up in arms about the Turkey Vultures that were swooping way to close for comfort. The Vultures, though not a threat were quite annoying to the Martins who were up and back in frantic bursts. To be quite honest, I don’t think I have ever seen the vultures flying so low to the ground.

Then of course my attention turns, as it always does to the purple gems singing in my backyard. Dozens of them. Now with several younger SY birds looking the rack over in search of an open compartment. No shyness with me. No coyness, no attempts to duck and cover from me. Their casual disregard to my approach is as comical as my look; outside, just rolled out of bed, hair in disarray, coffee in hand and a big dumb smile on my face. My transient children that come home to partner with me in raising their young. My Purple Martins.

Copyright: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

Don’t get me wrong. My excitement is tempered with a healthy dose of reality. The nestcam is using mogulus.com (thank you tech support) and the birdcam is using Ustream.tv. I welcome any and all feedback on which you like better. Both insert the most annoying ads that I do NOT profit from. So please, no hate mail. The weight of the camera housing makes the gourd list to the side a bit but not too bad. Gourd #4 was the winner of the online poll to determine which gourd would get the camera first. The Nestcam seems to kick off a bit more frequently which requires me to focus a fair bit of my OCD tendencies to checking the 2 spare computers Internet connection. My husband is at the end of his patience…I think. I only know I would be. I am sure he wonders when he will get me back from the birds and is counting the days until the season is over.

This has been a very busy year. Between the websites and all that entails and my outreach efforts, I have been talking, thinking, and breathing purple.

I don’t know if I mentioned the Purple Martin presentation I gave at Green Cay Nature Center a few weeks ago. There were some 20 + people there and many questions were asked. I brought a selection of gourds and tried to “make some converts”. I have also been sending out flyer’s to local residences that have purple martin houses in their backyards.

My martins appear very happy and are quite loud. The pool water feature runs 24/7 to mask any noise that may attract Owls. We added the sheet metal to the pine tree under the Owls nest box and hope that helps to keep them safe from raccoons. But back to the martins, I need to hang more gourds to accommodate the birds that have yet to arrive. I still have yet to see a SY.

On today’s nest check I noticed that most of the gourds had either pine bark or leaves brought in and all seem used. Spotless clean of course but all but 1 or 2 have perfectly shaped nest bowls swirled like soft serve ice cream.

I hope you all enjoy the nest cam and bird cam and let me know what you think.

The Purple Martins were perching in the trees today. Making me wonder if they were deciding when to start picking off pine needles off the trees . No nest building. I still think it is a tad to early for that. It did seem interesting to see them in the trees though. Usually they make their perch the telephone pole at the edge of my property.

The Mocking bird was taking sticks to a large tangle of Brazilian pepper plants and malealuca saplings in my neighbors property. She must have gotten tired of all the noise in the Roebellini Palm off my pool deck (a safer spot for sure) but Mockers being the shy type, I understand her resistance. My 2 boys are quite the rowdy bunch and have taken to posing the local population of Anoles (lizards) in the most embarrasing of situations.

The cardinals are frequenting the black oil sunflower seeds in the cage feeder. I have noticed they enjoy a spot of grass that is where I throw out the unused seed and husks from my finches. The spot has sprouted quite a few greens and I am sure it is a tasty treat compared to the usual South Florida grasses and greens.

A few things have been pressing on my mind. One being the innate greed within people. In today’s economy one would think that greed equates to Wall Street bankers and Detroit Auto executives. Not necessarily so. Greed manifests itself in subtle yet just as subversive ways. People talk about the give and take in relationships. Casual acquaintances have natural ebb and flow of conversation. Friendships have a natural wax and waning of communication and support. But human “informational” parasites infest our everyday lives more than what we think.

The stereotypical supervisor who takes information from a coworker and claims it as his own. The self proclaimed fan who feigns true interest to leach off others fame. We all have had these situations either happen to us or have been witness to it. In this world of answers being a “Google” away, it is hard for some people to understand that other human beings are not a one stop shop for advice, information and trade secrets. An example of this was at the Festival I attended a few weeks ago. A gentleman stopped by my booth and began asking me questions about Purple Martins, which I will ALWAYS be happy to answer. Eventually the questions turned to who manufacturers some of the housing I sell. Specific information that made me wonder why he was so interested. To make a long story short this person was not interested in helping Purple Martins, definitely not interested in my fledgling business, and for sure not interested in making a purchase. He was in fact a store owner interested in selling some of the same products I sell. In essence, he wanted information to help him be my competition. I was amazed at his attitude when I declined to give him the phone number of the manufacturers. Almost as if it was his inalienable right to this information. All I could say to him was, “If I could figure it out, I am sure you will too. Good Luck.” In closing, I hope with this economic challenge we find ourselves in, we can find our better selves.

Blog Copyrighted  S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

In recent posts I have speculated that Purple Martins were spending more time at home and that nesting should begin soon. Well, nesting has not yet started but it can not be far off. I do not believe there was any significant portion of time today that my Purple Martins were away from home. At 2 PM they were still crawling all over the housing and chortling away. I am confident that I will have no vacancies as I counted at least 15 Martins at one time and saw pairs defending compartments all day long. The noise is a true blessing and reminds me of the gifts of life and joy and God, all wrapped up in a purple package. The activity and song has such an exuberance to it. It is hard to remember how desolate my yard becomes when the Martins are not here.

The gourd rack is the winner again but not as clear cut as last year. Though the CUENT Economy Gourd rack was first to welcome home Purple Martins, the Sunset Inn house is taking on house guests. I estimate 2 pairs in the house and at least one bachelor ASY male. A solo male in an Excluder gourd hanging under the house and at least half of the gourd rack is housing ASY Purple Martins. Not one SY yet to be seen BUT I have a feeling that I am thrilled and looking forward to nest building to commence. I wish I had the means to put up another house or rack for them as I hate to think that any Purple Martins would want for a nest site. I have seen many houses get boarded up with the housing crisis and know that these birds have been facing these challenges for some time. If only there were more people out there that were interested not just being environmentally friendly, but “environmentally intimate”.

There is nothing more intimate and precious than watching the cycle of life unfold so dramatically right in your own backyard.  Counting the eggs in the nest and marking the hatch day on the calander. Counting the nestlings as they emerge from their shells. Watching them grow and feather out over the course of a month. Holding them and whispering well wishes and prayers as you place them back in their nest for the last time. Then waiting and watching the parents coax the fledglings out into the world. Knowing that the parents will return every year, trusting me with their young. Watching over me as I say my little prayers. Waiting with bugs in their mouths, to feed the hungry youngsters, whose appetites never seem to wane. “I’m hurrying…I’m hurrying” I’ll say to them, as if they understand.   This is what I do. And Autumn will be here too soon. Leaving my yard silent.

Blog & Photos Copyrighted 2009: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

I should have known better than to trust a weather forecast. I dated a meteorologist many years ago. Not to say anything negative about him, but if he knew what an in-exact science forecasting the weather was, I should know by now.

The cold snap of this weekend was a frigid  mid seventy degrees. The weather was beautiful and picture postcard perfect. Today may have reached the low 80′s. So much for putting out crickets. No need to bother.

This morning I may have had a new female going in and out of compartments. I WILL stay out tonight and do a good head count. I promise! The Live streaming webcam/birdcam (whatever you want to call it) is proving addicting. I hope you all are enjoying it. I am still trying to get the stream on an “impartial/non-commercial” broadcast website without luck. I was told yesterday that I need to get a static IP address as my IP address is “dynamic” In regular language it means put out more money. Which brings me to a short statement I want to make.

For anyone that thinks that my motives on my websites are dollar driven. You can not be any further from the truth. When you add up all the upfront and operational costs of designing and making a website, you would see that it will be a long time before I can retire! Without going into my finances, I just want any nay-sayers to know that having just the name of the site (ie:MyPurpleMartinBlog.com and PurpleMartins-R-Us.com) costs money. You pay per year of having the name. Then you pay someone for “hosting” the site (computer space to store all the sites information) Then the charges for someone to make it look like it does, work like it does, inventory, time, search engine/Google results…the list goes on and on. Enough said!

Oh, My sweet darling of a husband, put up a small Bat House for me. He was not thrilled, but he did it with a smile and with his usual willingness to please. I can tell he is not over-joyed with the thought of Bats living on the chimney but his love for me is stronger than his disgust of Bat guano, I suppose. I am a lucky girl!

Blog & Photos Copyrighted 2009: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

Certain things I just love. Like the the way a new car smells, new carpet, fresh laundry, new purple martin equipment. Yes, I know, most people don’t put bird houses on a list with clean clothes. I mean, it’s destined for the dirtiest of jobs. Bird poop in abundance, parasites, torrential rain and abuse from the elements. But still, the shiny metal and fresh plastic gourds are so clean and virginal, it seems a shame to get it all messed up. WHat am I talking about!?!? This is a hobby where your success is almost measured by the mess that you have to clean up at seasons end. The bigger the mess-the more Purple Martins you hosted. Right? Of course! We even go to the lengths of “dirtying up” a nest so it looks used. Smear a little mud here, a little dirt there, shove some old dried up pine needles in the compartment. Why heck, we have our new equipment looking like a college dorm room in no time!

Well, my new Purple Martin Gourd rack is up. For those following you know the quandry I was in to broach the subject of “what I wanted for Christmas.” I didn’t know how to convince my husband that a new gourd rack was ESSENTIAL to our marital bliss. But My husband is a smart man and a good man. In the end he asked me what I wanted for the holidays and I got my new rack. 

So there stands my new Creative Universe rack. Taking the place of a Quad tel pole that I almost ruptured a hernia on several times. 8 plastic gourds were too much to ask of me to lift up on a telescopic pole. The pole would slide through my hands with the speed of a demon if I forgot to put gloves on. Thankfully, never jarring an egg…but still. I was tempting fate. The attempts at lifting the rack back up were a true comedy act. By the end of the heavy hoist upwards, my arms would be trembling like a dried autumn leaf rustling violently by an Arctic blast, refusing to drop to the ground. Sweat would bead off my face like an Olympic runner…not that Jamaican runner though. A runner that actually had to put some effort into it. SO what was I to do? Tell a couple of birds that, “Hay, this rack is way to heavy so get outta here!” Heck no! I kept debating adding more but sensibility kept it at the 8 gourds that faithfully tended to 8 pairs of Purple Martins.

So back to my new rack. Concreted to perfection. Pulley rope wound neatly. I seem to find reasons to go out and lower it and raise it. The effortless rise, the graceful descent…oh the fluid movements. I sit and watch the rack at night on my new bird cam awaiting another day to play with it again. Can you tell how happy my husband has made me. I bask in the glow and await my birds return!

Blog & Photos Copyrighted 2009: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

As Purple Martin season draws near I find myself torn between preparing for my birds return on one hand and preparations for “everything else” on the other. My birds returned on January 29 last season and I have the sneaking suspicion that they will be earlier this year. It always seems odd that Purple Martins arrive so much earlier on the West coast of florida. Why would one little Lake (Okeechobee) hold up my birds for an additional month? I should be grateful for the extra time. Especially this year. My 4 year old son started going to pre-K only 3 months ago. And in that time we have all endured the flu twice. My 2 boys also have suffered through a sinus infection, an ear infection and a never ending runny nose. So running outside to gather pine needles is low on the to-do list. But it had better make its way to the top soon. Being sick has delayed the preparation of many things.

I am in the process of trying to gather information for a database of South Florida Purple Martin Colonies and have been placing flyers on mail boxes of homes that have martin housing up. On January 21st I will be going to the 2009 Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville for 4 days. I will be giving 2 presentations on Purple Martins along with tending to my exhibitor booth. I am planning on being at the Folke Peterson Wildlife Center on Jan10 for the “Call Of The Wild” event, again to give a presentation and run an exhibitors booth. Then add all the web site development stuff I have undertaken, I still need to buy the cement for the ground stake, and get my new CUENT gourd rack up. I had planned on increasing my capacity this year but I may have to be satisfied with a slight increase. Last year I had 12 gourds and 7 compartments in my house. I had about 85% occupancy.

This season I plan on slightly increasing gourds offered to 17 and 6 compartments in a new Sunset Inn house. I MAY be able to add a live webcam this year and somehow integrate this feature in my website PurpleMartins-R-Us.com .

One thing I DID get to do was put another coat of paint on the “little repeating nest trap that could”. The paint may be the only thing holding this trap together at this point. The wood is warped, but the lines on this house were never straight to start out with. My husband is still in shock that it actually works and it was proven again when last week I put the trap up. I had thought I heard a Starlings wolf whistle amongst a large flock of Grackles. Long story short the “little trap that could” did not catch the starling but the next morning I awoke to find another Eastern Screech Owl in the holding cage. Off you go little guy, go get some sleep.

Blog & Photos Copyrighted 2008: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

Sometimes I believe that the essential thing that sets us apart from other animals is that we define ourselves. We have some sort of conception of who we are. Who are you? By even asking the question we show that “Who” is an essential and fundamental part of our life. Speaking for myself, I am always in flux on “who I am” at the moment. Most of the time, to my husbands chagrin, I am a “mom”. I try to keep “wife” close to the top of the list, but it seems that as I get older, instead of figuring out “who I am” more clearly, I discover that there are more layers to me than I ever knew existed. Of course I am sometimes things I don’t want to be. For example; I have no desire to be a psychologist but between my family and my kids, I feel like I am constantly either wearing a white coat or feeling like I want to put someone in a straight jacket. When I am up till 3 AM painting in one of my crazy artistic compulsions, I am an artist…but when I wake up the next morning at 6AM with the kids, I REALLY wish I was not.

Of course, many of you reading this define yourself (as do I) as a Purple Martin Landlord or Steward. This feels like a relatively new role for me that I am remarkably happy about. Though being a Purple Martin Landlord isn’t a job, it can often feel like one with all the blood, sweat and tears we put into it. But it’s not that hard. It comes naturally. I mean geez, it’s not brain surgery. It’s not an exclusive club that requires decades of experience before you can lay claim to basic knowledge.

Being a Purple Martin Landlord is a mix of passion, real interest, concern and love for a blue-ish black bird with a slightly forked tail.

Being a Landlord doesn’t require battle scars, but you will get them.

Being a Landlord doesn’t require admission or acceptance from any club, organization or group, only from those same birds we seek so desperately.

Being a Purple Martin Landlord doesn’t require a degree/diploma or certificate, only the ability to constantly seek out these birds and the answers that will help us to help them.

I am a Purple Martin Landlord. And I am glad you are one too.

Blog & Photos Copyrighted 2008: S.Halpin/ PurpleMartins-R-Us.com