Missouri Purple Martins - A Mid-Season Update

All the native wildflowers are in bloom, creating a fantastic palette of colors and fragrances and drawing in a variety of bugs - aka, "bird food".

Sensitive Briar

While some areas have suffered from drought and a lack of food for their purple martins, the deeper roots of our native wildflowers and grasses have resulted in blooms everywhere, attracting many varieties of bees, butterflies and other insects that I can't even identify.  Our birds are having a field day.  Literally....

Purple Coneflower

Indian Pink

Ohio Horsemint, Bee Balm and Butterfly milkweed

The variety of bugs the purple martins are bringing in are fascinating.  The best ID of the insect in the picture below that I could come up with is "Great Purple Hairstreak".  If anyone has a better ID, please let me know.

We have reached the part of the season where not only are the temperatures starting to soar, but the number of housekeeping chores for my birds as well.  One of the things I've learned about being a purple martin landlord is that if I do the required nest changes at the right times (ie, nestlings 12-16 days old), to rid the martin nests of their bedbugs, then I'll have less "jumpers".  Jumpers as in dehydrated, underfed and mite-stressed nestlings. This is the part of the season that I both love & hate - I HATE the heat, but I LOVE the experience and knowing I'm really doing something that contributes to the future health of mine and my neighbor's colonies.
From the PMCA website:

Tests conducted by the PMCA in the late 1980’s showed that only 44% of martin  nestlings in parasite-infested nests survived to fledging age, compared to 84% in parasite-free nests. The man who conducted those tests, James  R.  Hill,  III, stated, “The  difference might actually have been greater than what was measured, because the young raised in the absence of parasites seemed fat and healthy, and probably had a higher-than-average first-year survival rate, whereas the young subjected to parasites seemed thin and often sickly, making them less likely to survive after fledging.”

Read more here at the PMCA site about Nest Changes: https://www.purplemartin.org/uploads/media/how-why-to-do-nest-r-332.pdf

As of June 19th, I had 57 nests that needed a nest change. Yes, 57 nests.  I currently have 76 pairs (3 new since June 15th!), so a whopping 75% of all my nests need changing.  At first, I was shocked.  Then I was kind of thrilled. Then I was kind of overwhelmed.  In 95+ degree weather.  All due on the same day. This is the first season I've had where the majority of my nestlings are all around the same age at this point in the season.  The nightly return of fledges is going to be thrilling...and will also require some monitoring to deter hawk predation.

Taking an Evening Break - Purple Martins bathing at the pond.

With the heat index around 102 degrees (real temps around 92-93), I started on my first rack on 6/20 (12 nests out of 18 on that rack). When I lowered them, my eyes immediately zeroed in on 3 gourds that were almost grey-colored due to the overwhelming number of mites. I had to wonder how many of those rained down on me when I was lowering my racks.
Here is what a gourd looks like when it's overloaded with mites. You have to wonder, how can they even sleep at night with all those mites??

Troyer Horizontal gourd covered with an explosion of mites.
Special thanks to Betty Farthing Grigg on the PMCA Forum for the use of the photo above.

Special thanks to Courtney Rousseau of the North Carolina Purple Martin Group for providing the video below of a gourd infested with mites!

Nevertheless, I pushed through and with alcohol wipes and a cold-water hose, I managed to survive, even though it took almost 2 hours for my head and my body to cool back down.

Thankfully, the last 3 days have been a lot cooler as I worked through the remaining racks. After the first 2 racks, I was thrilled to find that only 2 nests out of 36 had lost a total of 2 nestlings.  The rest were very fat and healthy.  Even my 2 nests with 7 nestlings in the first two gourd racks were doing exceptionally well. Yesterday, when I finished up the nest changes on my last rack, I concluded that I have "fat baby syndrome" and it's consistent across all my racks. It also indicated to me that while I had initially lost a few martins at the beginning of the season - probably some to the owl and some to the hawks - the majority of my nests have 2 parents that are keeping up with the grocery shopping.  I did find one nest with 4 dead young, so I suspect the owl / hawks got both parents of those. Fortunately, it was only one. I also had mixed feelings over discovering 2 new nests with 4 & 5 eggs respectively. They will be hatching around July 5th or so and probably not fledging until end of July / beginning of August, meaning another extended season for me.
So, total pairs - 76 with currently 360 nestlings!  Hoping to maintain something close to that over the next few weeks.

Nest Change Tips:

1. Dabbing a small amount of vanilla extract around your eyes, nose and mouth will help keep the gnats away from those areas of your face.

2.  Check your tool box before you start your nest changes to ensure you will have the needed equipment within easy reach. The last thing you want to do is go digging around to find something while you're simultaneously swatting at mites & bugs and the sun is overheating your brain!

3. Soak 6-8 paper towels with 91% rubbing alcohol, store in a Ziploc bag and add them to your tool box. These will be handy for wiping down your hands, arms and the gourds when there are just more mites than you can bear.

4. Your son's old white, light-weight, big & baggy karate pants make excellent nest-check pants! They are cool, loose and you can kneel on the ground without all the itchy grass tickling your leg.

5. Always assume that whatever you touch after nest changes are completed will also become contaminated with mites until you thoroughly wash your hands and arms.  Filling a large bucket with water and a having a bar of soap nearby will provide you with some much-needed relief after a round of nest changes.

Check out this post from 2016 for a more detailed list of the tools in my tool kit:  http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2016/05/nest-check-season-begins-and-sub-adults.html