YEAH! It is official. The purple martin season has begun! I am happy to report the arrival of 2 ASY purple martin females. They are chortling and sticking heads in compartments and even entering a few gourds. They seem none the worse for wear and happy to be home. I will take photos and be posting them asap. Also I am in the midst of getting 4 new cams up and working. STAY TUNED!

The colony activity here in West Palm Beach has certainly kicked up a notch. The male purple martins are even heard singing while still in there gourds. I opened up the other gourd rack and filled them with pine straw. Artificial gourds should be filled with a few handfuls of pine straw to prevent them being unable to exit the slick plastic gourds. Even with the black traction strip in my Troyer Horizontal Gourds, they can be difficult, if not impossible to exit. So make sure you place some nesting material in those gourds. I know “some” ultra conservative birders may scoff at giving purple martins this help. They see it as unnecessary interference. But that thinking is flawed. It has nothing to do with altering nature but more to do with preventing a birds death by our hand.

The Purple Martin colonycam is up and averaging about 90% up-time.

Yes, the Colonycam/webcam is up and is streaming the exterior view of a portion of our colony. I am NOT thrilled with the stream provider and my apologies for the annoying ads that pop up. Believe it or not, PurpleMartins-R-Us.com gets nothing for those ads. If I want to stream the webcam without the ads I have to fork over about $100 a month. So unless I win the lottery, that isn’t going to happen. I am investigating other ways to stream the cam but it’s all a learning process so I beg for your understanding and patience.

We are up to about 5 ASY purple martins here at our colony in Florida. The last few days had some cold temps in the 30′s at night and tonight and tomorrow will have strong rain showers with high winds.

I wanted to re-post one of my favorite posts regarding cold weather and supplemental feedings for those up north that will be getting martins soon. Since flying insects are pretty much dormant when temps dip below 40 degrees having supplemental feeding trays available can be just as welcome to purple martins as birdseed to cardinals.

Enjoy!

Extended Cold Spells TROUBLE for Purple Martins

Though it may make a cute picture, the mix of purple martins and extended adverse weather spells almost certain death for our feathered friends. And by extended weather, we are only talking about 2 days or more. Knowing what you can do will help your colony survive these early spring cold snaps.

Adverse weather, to a purple martin, is 2 or more days of steady rain and/or wind and/or cold temperatures below 40F. Only one of these conditions will make it virtually impossible for a purple martin to find enough food to sustain itself.

Being strict aerial insectivores, purple martins have no recourse when it comes to extended weather issues. They can’t forage for food on the ground and when temperatures dip, flying insects are no where to be found. With our crazy weather patterns we have been having and severe snow storms that have it snowing as far south as Florida, it is important to know what you can do.

So what should you do? ACT FAST! Don’t wait for your birds to be too weak to fly before offering supplemental feeding. Purple martins have to be trained to accept our help as they do not recognize food left out for them. If you wait too long your entire ASY purple martin population can die from starvation in just a few short days.

Supplemental Feeding of Purple Martins 101

Q: What do you feed a purple martins?

A: Crickets are the first choice for beginners. Mealworms or Scrambled Eggs are good once they learn to accept what you offer. But these items must be prepared. Mealworms and crickets (if live) should be frozen -till dead, then thawed thoroughly. They can be soaked in water and drained before feeding. Eggs should be cooked using NO oil or butter of any type.

Q: How do you feed a purple martin?

A: Martins that have never accepted supplemental feedings have to be taught or conditioned to eat food we offer them. After a day or 2 of adverse weather, approach the colony slowly. Use a large plastic spoon and fling a cricket up in the air in the general direction of the martins, up over them…remember you aren’t trying to hit the martins with the food. You want them to see the food flying past them. Continue this for 10 to 15 minutes. Most folks report that by the end of that time one or two birds will try to catch what they see flying by and once one starts, others will follow.

Once they accept food from you, the crickets (mealworms or scrambled eggs) can be placed on an elevated platform feeder and they will eat it off of the platform.

Visit this link on Supplemental Feeding of Adult Purple Martins for more information.

© PurpleMartins-R-Us.com

It’s official, the last of the nests have fledged and all the babies have taken to the air. A hawk was making daily visits and though I am sure (s)he got at least 2 fledglings, I am sure more fell victim. I was unable to get a good look so I am hoping it was the resident Red Shouldered Hawk, a slower and larger hawk that poses a formidable threat but less so than the smaller faster Coopers Hawk that are common in South Florida also.

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

With the heat index in the 100′s the fierce thunderstorms are ALMOST welcome. I say almost because with each of these storms severe winds of upwards of 45 MPH that would last past sunset, have inflicted some damage.

The nest of mockingbirds right outside our garage was blown down and the 2 partially feathered nestlings had perished. The large Sabal Palms lost a few fronds and the seed pods that the mockingbirds had made their nest in was woefully inadequate for the punishing winds.

The purple martins hung on to their perches well into the night seemingly afraid to detach themselves. I suspect an attempt to find protection within their nests would have had them blown away at some point during the storm. Fortunately the storm died down and all seemed quite but the previous week had these storms coming in almost on a daily schedule.

The winds were no problem for the martin poles. So other than the mockingbird casualties, all is well. Unfortunately the same can not be said for the laptop which ran the colony cam, so no live web cam at the moment. A new laptop is on the want list…any one???

After capturing the female in the old faithful S&S Repeating Nest box trap, the male continues to come by. Usually in silence, he lurks on the gourd rack watching the goings on around him. I have left him alone for now. For no other reason except that he poses no real threat AND I am a horrible shot.

The S&S awaits him and I am sure that when he finds a girl to bring by she may take a gander at the trap herself. I do have my old plastic martin house attached to the side of my home that I welcome any starlings to nest in. Since the house will not attract anything other than the starlings, in my neighborhood, it should do nicely as a trap.

The S&S repeater trap plans are available as is the ASSEMBLED trap also. The assembled trap is already put together and only requires minimal assembly of the pole.

I still have not noticed any SY martins and due to some odd weather the martins seem to be out feeding a lot. Between record low cold fronts and rain storms with gusting winds upward of 30 mph, the martins seem to be conserving their energy.  Remember that you can watch the exterior of the colony on our live streaming webcam at PurpleMartins-R-Us.com.

Yes, last week the purple martin colony cam went online. What is the colony cam? Well, it is the exterior view of a portion of my purple martin colony. Located in Sunny South Florida (Loxahatchee, which is western palm beach county, to be exact) the colony consists of 2 gourd racks and 1 multipurpose pole. The camera is currently on the “numbered” purple martin gourd rack.

As of right now there is capacity for 33 pairs but a few more gourds will go up bumping up this years capacity to about 36 pairs of purple martins. Last year 131 purple martins fledged from this site and we hope to do as well this year.

As of this morning there appears to be 2 pairs of martins. More should be showing up soon. Since migration appeared to have been delayed due to weather, the time between the ASY or adult purple martins arrival and the SY or sub adults arrival may be shorter than usual. So be prepared and get your houses up. If you live in the northern portion of the purple martins range and don’t expect them till later in the year, feel free to watch them on the web cam which should be running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…barring any technical issues which sometimes arise.

A few European Starlings keep making early morning visits but will not enter my nest trap. The first day they arrived the starlings tried to enter the trap which was stuck and since then they seem in no hurry to enter it again. Of course, it is working now but as my luck would have it, they wont even look at it again. Instead the starlings will sit and watch from atop the gourd rack and do that drawn out backwards wolf whistle that makes my hair stand up. Like fingernails on a chalk board. Normally the repeating nestbox trap also known as a S&S trap would do the trick and trap them like a charm but alas, you can lead a horse to water…  For easy to build step by step plans on how to make your own S&S trap click on the photo above or this link:  Repeating Sparrow and Starling nestbox trap plans. But in essence the trap has a clever teeter totter type mechanism that automatically resets itself after depositing the trapped bird (UNHARMED) in a cage below. A great tool for those that manage bluebird trails as well. Our native birds need all the help they can get!

Do plastic houses work? Sure and many purple martins raise families in plastic houses. For me, my first purple martin house (a plastic house) was an inexpensive way to discover that I really wanted to get into these birds and in short order I switched over to a gourd rack with a pulley system and an Aluminum martin house. (That I LOVE) I have not looked back yet.

As a purple martin landlord myself, do I recommend plastic martin houses? Usually not.

Many people shopping for a purple martin house turn towards plastic martin houses for 1 of 2 reasons. Reason #1 is Cost. Reason #2 is fear of internet shopping. Let me explain.

Reason #1 COST!

I realize that purple martin houses can seem expensive to the purple martin newbie. If your main concern is the cost of purple martin houses, take a few things into consideration. A basic wooden Bluebird nestbox at Walmart costs almost $30.00. It will only house one pair of Bluebirds. As you know, purple martins are colonial nesters and nest in the company of other purple martins. The price of a 6 room Sunset Inn Aluminum House costs $150.00. That comes out to $25.00 a compartment. Now I know the price of the pole is separate…as it would also be with a bluebird nestbox, but my point is, the cost pretty much equals out. Especially when you consider the extra added fun 5 more pairs of birds could ultimately provide. Now I know that a plastic bird house is a LOT cheaper. Heck the price for a COMPLETE plastic house set up with a pole is $145 at PurpleMartins-R-Us. That comes to about $12.00 per compartment, at first glance. BUT you have to factor in that those compartments need to be enlarged. SO now we are back down to 6 compartments. So that’s about $24.00 per compartment. AND factor in that the quality, longevity  and other issues and that deal doesn’t seem like such a deal anymore.

Reason #2 Internet shopping fear

Trust me, I know how it is. You may be interested in getting into the hobby. But you want to touch the martin house you are going to buy. You want to hold the package and read what it says. You want to be able to look someone in the eye as you hand over your dough. I know, I know. That is the drawback of internet buying. Go into your local Lowe’s or Home Depot and all you will find are those plastic purple martin houses. Many of the high quality wood and aluminum purple martin bird houses available on the internet are NOT available in stores. The superstores buy thousands of product at a time. Higher quality martin houses are built by hand. Many of these houses are built by Amish companies and you couldn’t find them in a brick and mortar  store if you tried.

So when it comes to cost the old adage of getting “what you paid for” applies. Trust me, if the manufacturers of the plastic houses had a $200 product, they would charge it and if the wood and aluminum houses were not worth the money they cost, the people that make them would be out of a job.

I don’t want folks to think I don’t make a habit of recommending plastic houses because I don’t sell many of them. I do sell martin houses on my website, PurpleMartins-R-Us.com but I usually recommend a higher quality house or gourds.  For the most part, I try to stay away from the “plastic house” controversy. And believe me there is a huge controversy.

When I read this post by Carole on her blog mtpleasant.homeschooljournal.net. I thought I would recommend her blog post as a read so that you can see other folks experiences with plastic martin houses. There are a few posts about the author’s purple martins and her changing from a plastic purple martin house to a wooden purple martin house. Reading her experiences will give you input on some of the drawbacks of plastic houses. If you are on the fence about what kind of purple martin house to get, just keep it in mind.

PurpleMartins-R-Us.com is owned and operated by active purple martin landlords. We are a specialty store that knows what works with purple martins because we host them every year. As always we are always here to help you with any questions that you may have about martins.

Three more nestlings became fledglings. It was the most painful thing to watch. Once again no parent in sight. I ran outside this morning and one of the larger nestlings had made it to the top of the gourd. It begged pathetically at every bird that flew by. I knew that if a Hawk, or one of the many Swallow-Tailed Kites saw him, he would be picked off. Luckily for me, I did not witness that. What I did witness was the begging that went on for about an hour. Sitting in the sun as the flock of purple martins would spook and fly up in a panic at the slightest disturbance and then settle back on the racks looking in and out of all the compartments. The showed great interest in the nestlings but no adult took pity and brought a morsel.

The Nestling that was sitting outside was visibly thinner than it should be. But the thinnest stayed in the gourd. Finally with a sudden burst the nestling took to the air and made a wide circle and easily gained altitude. It made an ungraceful landing in the Slash Pine and all the martins followed enthusiastically. Many of them also perched in the tree chirping and calling to the new fledgling. It was trying to keep a hold of the pine needles it was holding on to and at this point I went inside. I checked the nestcam and there still was the runt, chirping away.

I know that in theory that this fledgling had successfully fledged. My numbers get the benefit of another “plus” but in my heart, I don’t feel this nest will do well. Behind the eight ball there is a lot of catching up that needs to be done and I wonder if they will have the time to do it. Learning to fly is the easy part. Being in condition to fly to South America is another. I estimate that the number of visitors that I have seen will again drop withing the week. I would be surprised to see more than the occasional purple martin come by August.

I went ahead and went out with my boys and we did not return until the afternoon. Looking out I saw nothing. I looked with my binoculars, I saw nothing. I checked the nestcam and there was the runt. All alone. I still had some of the crickets and knowing how he was yesterday when I checked them I went ahead and lowered the rack. I again carefully slipped a mesh bag over the entrance so that he would not flush out. I took him out and my hopes for him fledging are nearly zero. Even skinnier than before his keel bone is protruding more than ever. I feel at this point that he is so malnourished that he wouldn’t have the muscle tone to even be able to fly. I gave him some Gatorade and am keeping him outside in a 5 gallon bucket hanging up an a peg. No snake or coon will reach him and if he wishes to fly out he can. But as I suspected, he has not attempted to do so yet. So Gatorade was given till dark and I will start again early in the AM.

My prayers are for his peace and mine.

My husband was outside hollering at me as I lowered the gourd rack. Thunder was cracking and the sky was way to volatile to be messing with the purple martins. But I had just gotten home with a few dozen crickets and the Nestcam was not very reassuring. It seemed like something was not quite right.

For those of you unaware of the current drama. The last nest of the season and the 5 nestlings within (now at 26 days old) have been suffering from diminished parental care. The ASY male curiously has been around on and off during the day but with no meal to offer the nestlings. The SY female also has been circling and feeding high above watchful but also not feeding the young. Last Saturday I took the skinniest of the lot (including a runt) to the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary. A few feedings and bolus of fluids given later, they were perky and I put them back in the nest. Today I could not watch anymore. So down the rack came.

I had left the rack only halfway down and placed a net bag over the opening so that no birds could fly out while I lowered. When I opened the Troyer gourd only 4 nestlings were inside. In a mad rush I fed the 2 skinniest but am unsure if the runt had caught up or if one of the older more vigorous siblings fledged at some point today.

Back to my husband hollering at me, “Do you want to get struck by lightening?” Came in between thunder  claps. My hair wet as a slow drizzle had begun to fall. In a rush I raised the rack back up and after putting everything away I pulled the sock on a string that held the nestlings within. They stayed put and mom and dad circled.

The thin keel bone of the skinniest nestling is disturbing to me and I should have kept him out and fed him over the course of the remainder of the day and tomorrow.