The weather here in Texas County, Missouri has been less than ideal for raising baby purple martins. We have had lots & lots of rain. Lots. Then, if it wasn't raining, it was cold. Or, it was raining AND cold. My nest check on May 16th revealed that I had 5 pairs (according to the official, "how do you count your pairs" rules) of purple martins. Meaning, 5 nests had eggs. I knew all of the rest were also gearing up to start laying. Then the weather pooped out on us and I thought they would lose all the existing eggs and any that were laid in the meantime.
During a nest check on June 1st, I discovered that was not the case. I found a lot of nests with 1 to 3-day old nestlings. So, the purple martins had shaken their fist at Mother Nature and said, "We SHALL carry on"! I did find 2 dead nestlings and 3 nestlings missing from another nest (there were originally 5 eggs and only found 2 nestlings). Not bad for a brutal 3 weeks. And sub-adults arrived about around May 20th, so lots of fighting going on. As of today, June 20th - I have 82 pair with 266 nestlings, and 66 eggs still to hatch. My oldest ones (from the May 16th nest check) started fledging yesterday!
I've been seeing some posts on various purple martin groups where landlords without predator guards have discovered they've sadly lost their entire colony to a snake or raccoon attack. What makes some of these losses even more difficult is that some of these landlords were given the predator guard information 2 to 3 years ago. Such needless loss.
I have been thinking about my father-in-law a lot lately and the very funny things he did - that will relate to this post.
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| Dad and his garden |
When Bob's Dad was still alive and we were building our new homee here, he would frequently invite us over for dinner. One of his favorite sides was cornbread. One night, as we were eating it, I noticed that the cornbread looked gritty and more importantly, tasted like we were eating ground up cornmeal. When I asked him if he had changed the recipe, he said, "yeah, I decided not to add flour. It doesn't need any flour anyway - it still rises and tastes good".
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| Bob Jr. and Bob Sr. - Dad loved coming over & supervising the construction of everything at our new home site here in Missouri. Even the pond. |
"Welllll...that's debatable", I thought (to myself), "are you losing your tastebuds"? Hehe. As time went on, he started leaving other various things out of the recipe; salt, milk (instead, using water), etc., so I started making the cornbread and bringing it over. His only rule was, "NO sugar". I could abide with that one.
On June 5th, my neighbor asked me if it was too late to set up his site for purple martins. Well, no, if you get it up quickly (next 2-3 weeks). Sub Adults are still coming in to my site and all my gourds are full. As I gathered the information to give him, and prepared my spiel for him, I thought of my father-in-law and laughed - "there's a really simple recipe for success".
The recipe to hosting purple martins successfully - and KEEP hosting them far into the future - is really simple.
The primary ingredients - good, manageable housing; good housing location (at least 60 feet +) from trees, removal/eradication of non-native nest competitors (HOSP & starlings), and more importantly, after you attract them - ADD a predator guard to your poles to keep them and protect them.
So, what ARE the required ingredients for a long-term successful site (click on the table below to enlarge)?
My Recipe Card:
Bob and I laugh about it often when I'm making a dish and he'll quip, "you don't need no milk in that...you probably don't even need cornmeal....!"...and we'll laugh at the fond memories of the funny things his Dad did...and I realize how much I miss him.
