Of Missouri Sunsets, Spring and Purple Martins

After a few days of cold, wet miserable weather - including SNOW, I decided to go outside the last few evenings to check on my purple martin population and observe them as they rain down from the sky at dusk.  On Monday night, my camera battery died pretty quickly.  Just swell. But Tuesday night, I was re-charged and prepared.  Only I really wasn't prepared for what Mother Nature has been up to the last few days.
After last year's drama of having to deal with a lot-more-than-usual hawk attacks (8-10 per day - we think a male & female Cooper's hawk) we removed a few more trees this past winter.  So far, this has been a huge improvement...(knocking on wood).
The guidelines for attracting martins state that you need 40' of open space around your colony, but there are many other factors involved in that, not only for attracting, but also keeping them safe.  Even though they were 150' away, the hawks were using the cedar trees as cover and coming up the East side low & fast behind them, then launching surprise attacks on my new fledges. So, in the end, the trees had to go.

Still, I'm engaging every tool in my arsenal to fight back against any hawk attacks, including my little 'winged orcas' and bird-feeding stations surrounding my colony on all sides, setup halfway between the woods and the gourd racks.

My "Winged Orcas"

In my particular case, the noise from my colony attracts hawks, more than any birds at a bird feeder.
The birds at the East feeding station were on duty, doing their part. They work-for-food...notice I didn't say, "for free", but since chicken scratch is only $7.50 a bag at our local MFA, let's just call them, "cheap labor" and "free decoys".

The birds at the West feeding station were also on duty - same labor prices.  When I'm out & about with my martins, I keep one eye on these feeding stations so I can gauge whether a predator is nearby.

While waiting for the martins to return, I made a video of my little winged orcas (tree swallows) and all the other bird activity around my site. I was surprised at how many birds I could hear on the video when I played it back on my computer. I had only been 'listening' for alarm calls while outside and didn't really realize how many birds have already arrived this spring!

Take a listen - how many birds can you identify by their calls in the below video? I'll give you a hint - there are NO English house sparrows or starlings!

At 7:08 PM a small group of eight martins started circling the gourd racks. By 7:24 PM - still only seeing 8 martins, I thought I may have been off by a factor of 12 when I had informed a fellow purple martin landlord that I thought I had approximately 100 martins here now.
But at 7:31 PM, it started raining martins from the sky and I had to force myself to turn off the video camera periodically as I tried to keep watch for any approaching hawks and enjoy the show at the same time.  And wow, WHAT a show - a brilliant sunset AND over 100 purple martins!  I had such a delightful evening.
The sound in the video below is just as I heard it - no enhancements have been made. I did have to blend multiple videos together, as I had to frequently turn it off and on, so I could walk around and continue to monitor for hawks. To enjoy the video below, click on the YouTube icon and open in full-screen mode.

I love these evenings - partly cloudy paired with the setting sun causing these rapidly changing colors, along with loud, raucous purple martin chatter and no hawks. Good night, my lovelies! Tomorrow is another day!