Purple Martins 2024 & Building a Waterfall Birdbath

This year's purple martin season just flew by. I wasn't able to spend as much time with them as I usually did in previous years, but it was enough to do nest checks and make sure there were no major issues. I wasn't able to do nest checks for the last 4 weeks due to some other unforeseen issues, but, my numbers this year at last count were: 82 pair, roughly 310 fledged (without confirmation of the last 8 nests). They all finally left my site during the second week of July.

Yes, I still had my resident GHO show up...she's kinda like Dory in the movie, "Finding Nemo"...she just keeps swimmin' hoping she'll find & catch a martin one night. 

I'm sure, in the end, she probably caught a few that exited for the magical "Dawn Song" hours, but at least it wasn't a slaughter. The cages continue to work well, especially with the netting underneath. I had a very determined Sharp-Shinned hawk at the beginning of the season, prior to my mounting of the netting. He/She actually came up inside the cages a couple of times to try to catch a martin. But after mounting the netting on the racks, he/she never attempted that again.

Great Horned Owl - May 6, 2024 - 9:00 PM

At the beginning of the season, the purple martins tend to be very noisy - especially during the daytime hours. I've actually seen the owl perched in a tree in the distant treeline during the day, while she observed my colony. Probably planning her strategy. She really does try to figure out the perfect angles.

Great Horned Owl, stalking my colony from the ground. May 6, 2024 - 9:12 PM

You really have to give her an A+ for effort.

Great Horned Owl, stalking my colony from the nearby perching rack. May 7, 2024 - 4:38 AM

I had been meaning to construct a new bird bath and an elderly gentleman that came by to pick up some stuff ended up pushing that decision up in my priority list when he accidentally backed over my old bird bath arrangement. I had been itching to re-do it anyway, given the bird bath arrangements my friends were sharing on social media. So, very frankly, after he destroyed my original setup, I may have secretly cheered. Ha!

Given the various issues I had with my old bird bath (and lessons-learned), I had a better plan this time.

I wanted:

-  a 'waterfall' bath with an upper & lower tray; 

- more water capacity in the trays themselves; 

- a large capacity water container (so I didn't have to keep refilling the trays during extreme heat) ;

- a pump to circulate the water; and

- a better location for birdie access and out of the way of people who should no longer be driving a vehicle.

I found the perfect trays on Amazon (thanks to a friend's help) and hubby and I decided to make a trip to our local hardware store to try to find ideas on how to make the water supply system more self-sustaining. After quite some time walking around, a store associate helped us find a nifty item called a "bulkhead flange". OMG, this thing is awesome! It has a gasket on one side to help seal the hole and a lock nut on the other side so you can tighten it. We drilled the right size hole in the bottom of the tray, mounted it, then used a small length of PVC pipe to set the level of the water for the lower tray. I placed some screen over the hole and used a zip tie to hold it in place. It filters a lot of stuff out before it can get into the water-holding bin.

The bin below is a 20-gallon storage container (Walmart). We bought a 45 & a 90 degree elbow and enough 1.5" PVC to make sure if we made a mistake, we still had some remaining with which we could make more mistakes.

We then cut a short, 6" piece of PVC pipe to add to the 90 degree elbow, for the water return. It's also fitted into the elbow, just tight enough that I can remove the bin lid and reach in and twist it off when I decide I need to clean the bin.

After finding a highly-rated solar powered pump, we connected tubing and the flow control. I thought we would need a flow control since the pump has a 350 gph flow, but turns out we ended up not needing the controller.

 

 

The black outflow gadget mounted in the picture below was able to be mounted to the tubing and it is held in place by some cool rocks I was able to find.

 

 

 

I then placed the pump into the filled bin and we drilled the access hole large enough to hold the water supply line and the power cable that runs to the solar panel. 

 

 

After some "proof of concept" stuff (as Mr. Freeze likes to call it), we have landed on the final product. It did take awhile to get the tilt on the top bath just right and we ended up using some of the leftover composite decking materials to support the bottoms of the trays (they're water-proof & will last forever). 

We used cinder blocks on either side to support the planks & trays and my grandsons camouflaged the blocks with our cool rocks.

My purple martins' reactions to it were rather funny - they're such curious buggers! They would do low & slow flying passes to check it out, but never did land.

 

Best of all, we have a 5-star rating from our many customers. They think the price - "pose for a photo" is more than fair. Clicking on the pictures will launch them into a larger window for better viewing.

Male & female bluebirds

Male cardinal

Female Cowbird - contemplating her life decisions.

Female Orchard Oriole

The look on the field sparrow's face (in the lower tray), when a pair of Grey Catbirds fly in to take a bath (hehe).

Field Sparrow - he/she has earned frequent bather awards.

Dickcissel contemplating a bath

Cardinal and a Bluebird

Blue-winged warbler (yellow bird) and Indigo Bunting

Female Indigo Bunting

Creating a New Rhythm

This is going to be a totally different post on my nature blog than what you're used to - but I'm finally getting back in my groove, so here goes. I hope you'll be patient with me as I work through this. I spent the last year wrapped up in what was (for me, anyway), a very dramatic change to my life - deciding if / when to retire. Sometimes, the decision process was even driving me to the edge of depression. Along with some physical issues that I needed to resolve, I needed to answer some questions for myself - what would I do if I quit my job? The biggest part of my identity has been wrapped up in my career. I like to be busy and I was very good at what I did - and most importantly, I was very happy at my job. How and why would you quit something you enjoy doing? Finally, I made my decision and I announced it in April, 2024...because I decided there were other things that I would enjoy doing equally as much - probably even more.

Friday, August 2nd, 2024 was my last day as a career woman. I am officially retired! My manager setup a very nice "virtual farewell" party (my colleagues were literally scattered across the globe), and all the warm congratulations and reminiscing of the times we had spent together working on various projects brought tears to my eyes and made my heart ache. But not enough to turn back - I had spent a whole year making this decision and I knew it was the right one for me.

My husband took me out for a very special retirement dinner to celebrate. After working all these years (25 years at this company), and 45+ years total, it felt good to say, "I'm done!". But whew, boy - as my access to the company systems was terminated and I unplugged my computer and turned off my phone, I started to feel really unsteady on my feet. It was strangely unsettling - and it felt like my boat started rocking on some rough seas. I knew that it was not because I was questioning my decision, but something else. 

The train ride I took in Germany and half-way there, realized I was going the wrong direction. Yeah, fun times!

 

I stood on my front porch Friday evening and tried to sort through all these new (and surprising) emotions. As I listened to the indigo buntings chirping to each other from the various treetops, (apparently, I have a huge flock of them here), the Bob-white quail calling, a particularly loud Dickcissel and the hot breeze baking my face, I finally realized I was not really 'looking' at the landscape. I started to focus my eyes on my prairie and the flowers blooming, my new bird bath, my garden that needs tending and all the other things that I WANT to engage in now. I realized, I had lost my "working-woman" rhythm. I have had a 5-day workweek with a purpose and a rhythm with a known schedule for the weekends for many, many years. Now my tether was gone and I felt like I was flapping around out here in the wind without an anchor.

 

A Dickcissel checks out the birdbath and tries to decide whether he can trust me.

Saturday, I packed up all the work equipment into my FedEx box and rearranged my desk - another step of closure. I turned my work phone back on to make sure I had it properly set to go and ensure there were no messages waiting for me. A message appeared to let me know I was no longer allowed any access to anything. WELL....I guess I really am done! 

My trip to Salzburg, Austria - yeah, we're gonna climb that hill in the background up to that castle. HA!

Salzburg, Austria - we made it!

I puttered around the house Saturday. One of my goals for my first week was to clean out my closet - specifically, to get rid of some of the work clothes that I will likely never wear again. I had confidently told myself, THAT task should be easy. But, as I previewed the job, I realized this was going to be a very emotional task. Just too many memories tied to these clothes - I remember wearing that skirt in Germany and that outfit when I toured Salzburg, Austria on a 2-week work trip, etc., etc. My heart started to ache again.....NOPE, nope, nuh-uh, I can't do this yet. 

My first trip to Germany - my German ancestor's cellar!

 

Trip to Munich, Germany - King Ludwig's Palace

Sunday, I decided to clean out my bird bath before the mosquito larvae grew into adult mosquitos! Dang, it's SO hot...I told my husband, I should have waited another month or two to retire, so the weather would have been cooler and I could get outside more to vent these emotions. But, as my husband said, "you could have played that game for years, and never retired". 

Today, Monday, August 5th, I realized the first benefit of retiring - no more "Ugggghhhh, it's Monday!" for me! And no more alarm clocks...unless I want to set one. 

I'm still feeling a bit unsteady today, so, for now, I'm trying to take it easy for the first week. Eventually, I'll find all the pieces to put into place so I can establish a new rhythm - a fun, "NOW, I get to do ANYTHING I want to", rhythm. And steady my ship once again.

Me - on a trail cut thru our Tall Grass prairie.

Our piece of heaven - Gobbler's Knob