Look What Mother Nature Dragged In

 I have been keeping a log book of all my purple martin arrivals and nest checks since time began. Okay, well really since I became a landlord in 2007 with my first pair. I love writing in it each season with my mechanical .09 pencil. Something about writing with a pencil that I just love. I start each season by writing on a new page, "Season 20XX". Then, I start writing when the first purple martin arrives. 

This year, my notations began on March 4th with the first ASY male arrival. The only others so far:

• Mar. 12th - 3 martins here;
• Mar. 14th - 6 martins here - supplemental feeding;
  
• Mar. 20th - 11 martins here - supplemental feeding;
• Mar. 21st - rain;
• Mar. 22 & 23rd - 68 & 70 degrees - over 25 martins here.
• Apr. 1st - too many to count....over 50 at least.
  

As I scanned through my notebook to see what was happening on these same dates in past years, I wondered if my son or my grandsons would someday find my Purple Martin notebook and be curious enough to read through it. I'm sure the grandsons would get a good laugh reading some of my notes, knowing how bird-crazy their grandmother was. I wonder if they would marvel at the handwriting and feel a warmth of familiarity and that will open up a flood of memories? The same way I loved to read the notes that my grandmother wrote in her letters and especially in her Bible? I've been feeling rather down about aging and thinking about my own mortality lately and the best way for me to work through stuff is to write about it. Not today, but soon. Moving on.....

Today, there are more than I can count but I'm sure I have over 50 martins now.

Yesterday evening during my walk, I saw my martins zooming just over the tops of my native wild plum grove. There are thousands of these moths swarming the fragrant, snow white blooms. I ran to the house and grabbed my camera and of course, by the time I returned, most of the martins were headed to bed, but I did manage to catch a few on video catching a snack for bedtime. I LOVE seeing this - it's one of the many reasons I love to talk about native plants and how many insects they host. And those insects are now feeding many of the birds here today. Now you can see why I preach, "GROW NATIVE"!

Here's a short video where I managed to capture a few purple martins & tree swallows snagging a moth before bedtime.

 Not only are the purple martins swarming in, so are the tree swallows. I have a LOT more tree swallows than I have nest boxes for them. Check out how many TRES are twittering around my fields right now in the video above.

In 2021, a bluebird and tree swallow pair nested in this same paired configuration and last year, I had 2 tree swallow pairs nesting back-to-back in those same houses. According to the 'rule' book, when setting up tree swallow grid, they need about 100' between their nest boxes, but we love to break the rules here. 

This past weekend, I decided to take my last two spare nest boxes out of the garage and pair them with a couple of nest boxes on other posts.The new nest boxes certainly weren't doing anyone any good in the garage, so why not find out if lightning will strike 3 or 4 times on Gobbler's Knob? 

In the past 2 days, I've also discovered that I have 2 pairs of nesting bluebirds! After the Polar Vortex of 2021, our local bluebird population was devastated. Where I had had 3 - 4 pairs of nesting bluebirds every year prior, I had none in 2021 and only 1 pair last year. I was thrilled to find 5 blue eggs in one nest and 2 eggs in another nest yesterday, and I encountered a male bluebird guarding another nestbox north of my house. Keeping my fingers crossed this is the year they rebound!