The Birds & The Bees: May 2019

It seems that I finished getting my new rack up just in time. This year, to better protect my martins and make my nest checks easier, I've replaced my two Deluxe Gourd racks with a third Super System gourd rack. With drilling four extra holes on each of the Super System racks, I'm able to have 28 gourds on each system, maintaining my 84-gourd colony.
I'm thrilled that I'm not only going to be able to more easily do nest checks this year, but I also won't be fighting with the owl cages and donating a quart of blood every time I do a nest check! So far, things have been very quiet where the Great Horned Owl has been concerned. No signs of feathers or attacks yet.
On Saturday, May 4th, I was able to identify my first sub-adult male arrival for the 2019 season.

Last night, just as the last of the light was fading away, a fast-flying group of martins circled my site three times. They were tightly grouped and all their bellies were very white. I laughed as I suddenly realized they were a gang of sub-adults, coming in like gangbusters - they folded their wings and dove into my colony. They tumbled through the openings in the cages and proceeded to perch on the gourd arms.
They must have thought they would really impress the girls, arriving like a gang of thugs - reminded me of this scene from Grease 2:

All thirteen of them were sub-adults and they acted like they didn't have an established gourd yet, indicating they must have migrated & arrived here yesterday. It became very noisy in the gourds as the light dimmed and I could barely make them out trying to enter the already-occupied gourds.

Sub-adult arrivals, with a couple of ASY bachelor males.

Today, as dawn arrived and the rain continued, making it a cold, wet miserable day for humans and avian alike, I was able to see that indeed, I now have a lot of sub-adults on-board....that are getting ready to wreck chaos here on Gobbler's Knob.

Free showers today. May sub-adult arrivals.

There were definite advantages to the timing of their arrivals though.

May sub-adult arrivals.

With the weather being incredibly cold and rainy today, some of my "old-timers" who knew the routine when this weather arrived, decided to let me know today that it was time for the eggs and crickets to be served.
Thinking it was a good training opportunity for the new SY arrivals to learn how the diner works here on Gobbler's Knob, I took advantage, thawed some crickets and cooked some eggs.
After some refresher flipping training, I dumped everything on my tray and called them to the trough. In a "monkey-see, monkey-do" fashion, some of the SYs landed with the adults and watched them as they gobbled down the food.

Note the little SY female to the far left.

This little SY female was especially curious and very smart. At first, she tried to steal the food from the ASY female on the right. She knew whatever was going on was a good thing, but she didn't quite understand it yet. But she watched closely and studied hard.

She watched the ASY female closely.

After 10 minutes of watching and unable to steal the food from the ASYs, the little female decided to give it a try. I was thrilled! She will remember this routine now.

Finally, she tried it out.

A few minutes later an SY male (left of her) arrived. I'm not sure if he is HER mate, but he watched her intently and I'm sure she'll teach him the ropes. If he's nice to her that is.

SY male and SY female learning how to eat at the feeding tray.

Bob said, "you know they all probably ate yesterday, right? Now they're just being little freeloaders". "Yes," I told him, "but I never pass up a training opportunity". And sure enough it paid off.
Hoping for much better weather in the coming days - for my birds and my bees.
I saw this raccoon today toddling across my yard at 2:30 PM. His/her home must be flooded out for him to come out like this. I let him/her pass as I felt kinda sorry for it.