"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." ~Wendell Berry
When purple martin landlord, John Miller from St. Louis (who also manages a few public sites in Forest Park), reported a sighting of a sub-adult male on 4/22/2016, I thought he was kidding around. But no, he was serious. And because it was John, I knew he knew what he was talking about. Check out his post here: https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=31644&p=258054#p258054
Turns out, this is his earliest sub-adult arrival ever. I searched my colony on 4/28 and identified a rowdy, reckless sub-adult male also, along with 5 ASY banded males whose bands need to be read too! Not my earliest arrival, but close! On the night of 4/28, I anxiously watched as the sun sank in the western sky and 12-13 young sub-adult males and females tried desperately to find an open nest cavity.
An ASY male - banded - number to be identified (see his lower right leg). He patiently waits as his mate-to-be inspects his new housing.
One of the sub-adult females obviously has some leucistic genes,
displaying some white splotches on her head. You can tell it's a female
by her bright white undertail coverts. The loving gaze she's receiving
from all the males surrounding her is also a dead giveaway. I've never
noticed a bird with pink legs before and I wonder if that's due to the
leucistic genes in her bloodline?
A sub-adult female is checked out by the eager males. Note the white splotches on her head and her legs are an unusual pink color that I've never seen before. I shall call her Betty Boop for her "pink stockings".
Another sub-adult female sits nearby with perfect posture, very lady-like. Note the very white undertail coverts on her also. She was somebody's baby last year.
ASY male and SY female.
No group of sub-adult pictures would be complete without one of the very eager, clumsy SY males also fluttering about trying to impress the females. Note the coloring in his undertail coverts and the purple feather splotches above his right leg and around his throat & chin. Definitely a young male, about to take a whomping from the ASY males in the Trendsetter whose females he's trying to steal.
SY male - note the splotches of purple feathers already showing. He will be very easy to identify and track this season.
The reason I was so anxious the night of 4/28 was because earlier in the week, the morning of 4/24/2016 an old friend had returned. I have mixed feelings about seeing her on my game camera again. For one thing, I was hoping she would leave us alone this year. It is encouraging in the video that she is not actually attacking any of the housing, but simply looking like she is using the perches for hunting.
For all I know, she has been using the tops of the gourd racks for hunting most of the year, but since I don't keep the game cameras running all year due to the obvious high cost of batteries, I don't know what she's been up to. She does look very healthy - downright fat, even.
On the other hand, it is a bit comforting, knowing I have done everything I can to protect my martins and the only way she can get to them now is if they decide to flush out of their housing. For that, there's nothing I can do and they are on their own. I have already found a few feathers of one bird about 100' away from my colony. I can only hope that was from the Sharp-shinned hawk that has now moved out of the area and that was the only loss I'll see this year. Yeah, let's just say that.
Regarding the video, I watched the ones before & after the GHO left
and the patterned shadows on the video look oddly like another owl's
feathers, but I cannot for the life of me, figure out how they would be
spread out like that. But they weren't there before the owl appeared or
after she left. So, is there another owl, perhaps her mate, traveling
with her? I'm not sure, but I've setup my main monitoring system now to
try to watch the overall colony. Take a look and let me know your thoughts in the comments below regarding what you think the ghost shape is.
The first wave of sub-adults has definitely arrived, so I hope you have your housing
open and if you're wanting to expand your colony this year, now is a
good time to add more housing or gourds!
As we replenished the mulch in our landscape bed by the house last Saturday, Bob told me to turn and look at who was being nosey. She was lying stretched out on the mulch, warming her long, lovely, green-speckled body. This is one of my favorite snakes in Missouri - the speckled king snake - (see information on them and other snakes here): http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/10/Snakes-of-Missouri.pdf.
We had scared a mouse out of the old mulch and it had run right into the same hole from which she had emerged. I liked to believe she came out to express her gratitude; what are those lumps in her body, anyway? Check out the description of her foods in the picture caption below - "including venomous species"! Bonus!
Speckled King Snake, sometimes also called, "Green" Speckled King Snake - non-venomous. Foods include rodents, bird eggs, small birds, lizards, and other
snakes, including venomous species. It is immune to the venom of the
various pit vipers in Missouri. The speckled kingsnake kills its prey by
constriction.
With the warmer weather being more consistent now, the snakes are starting to move, as well as other ground predators, including raccoons, so it's time to ensure there is protection not only on your purple martin housing, but also on your bluebird, tree swallow and chickadee nest boxes!
We had placed 6" pvc pipe on some of our 4x4" posts, but we have been moving to stove pipe now. It seems to be a longer-lasting material and has not faded and gotten as rough on the sides as the old PVC has.
This is 6" pvc - due to be replaced by the better-quality stove pipe. A TRES pair discuss proper territorial boundaries with another interloping male.
The 8" stovepipe snaps together easily and with a coat or two of wax each year seems to be the best protection against climbing predators. Albeit, there is nothing I can do about the woodpeckers enlarging the holes, or rather, nothing I really WANT to do about it. If they want to nest there, let them nest.
I know I have raccoons and snakes about, so predator guards get put on all my nest box poles, even the ones that are mounted on T-posts as the one below. By the way, I found out the hard way - these little rubber "catches" on the nest boxes below are absolutely no match for the strong talons of a Great Horned or Barred Owl. We found one pulled open one misty morning and the adult female and her chicks had been killed, so now I drive a screw into the door from the side to keep it solidly closed when a flying predator attacks.
This is a great video showing some different options for predator guards for your nest boxes:
For my purple martin poles, I have purchased the 'quick release' predator guards from the PMCA. It makes my life easier with being able to quickly remove these guards as I do nest checks every weekend on these 4 systems. I mount the inside support of this guard as high as I can reach (I'm 5'3" tall and my reach is comfortably about 6'8" high). These guards are then high enough that a raccoon or squirrel cannot easily get above them and climb on up the pole.
As added prevention, some people also add netting on their poles. You can purchase what's commonly called "bird netting" in the gardening section (intended to keep birds from stealing the fruit from your fruit trees) of Walmart or other stores. The netting with the 3/4" openings are recommended to stop larger snakes.
Please note - the netting will NOT stop climbing predators such as raccoons, so it is best to use both types of protection. In order to keep you from having to remove multiple snakes from your netting, the netting is best placed above the metal predator guards - and if you use a good metal predator guard, you shouldn't find any snakes in your netting anyway. Mounting it above also keeps the raccoons from using the netting as a 'boost' to help themselves get over the metal guards. After all, who wants to go out and wrestle with a raccoon, feral cat, squirrel or possum who is tangled up in their netting? Thanks to all these preventative measures, the least of my problems come from the ground predators.
A last note about releasing snakes from your netting; as I mentioned above, our native snakes contribute to a balanced ecosystem. With my speckled king snake and prairie king snakes roaming about (even nesting in my landscape beds), I have yet to encounter a Copperhead around my house.
Without the good snakes, we would be overrun with venomous snakes, rodents, and other prey species. You can easily remove the snake from the netting by grasping the snake behind it's head and cutting the netting to free it (yes, you'll have to replace your netting). Place the snake in a 5-gallon bucket and move it to another safe territory, but please, do not kill it. Love'em or hate'em, we need more of them to keep our environment in balance.
On Saturday, 3/26 it reached 69 degrees on Gobbler's Knob. But with the ever-present Spring wind, it felt a bit cooler - maybe 68 degrees. Heh! Oh, but it was so beautiful and there was absolutely no way, I was going to stay indoors. I was quite surprised when I flushed my martins - it appears my 84 cavity colony is already 1/2 full! I've never been that full by this time of year before.
My first priority was to finish up my owl cages on my Deluxe gourd racks. My jerry-rigged, owl interference didn't work as well on those racks last year and I've no doubt that I'll be seeing my Great Horned Owl again this year and possibly, my Barred Owl as well.
I would have caged these 2 racks last year, however, I could never come up with an idea that would work, both because these racks had no place to mount homemade supports for the wire and there were also weight considerations (it's windy here in the spring!). In summer of 2015, we figured out what we needed to do. I ordered the same stainless steel arms for these racks from the original manufacturer, only the length of these arms would be changed to 36" and they would have the same gourd mounting holes as the originals. I ordered 8 arms per rack as that would be enough to support the type of wire cage I needed to build.
Here's what my racks looked like last year, just using garden stakes as a 'cage' to interfere with any owl messing with them.
I decided that I would use 4 panels of 4 foot-high welded-mesh wire fencing, per rack. Each panel is cut to 56" wide, allowing me to bow them out almost 10" from the front of each gourd. I was surprised how light the 4 panels were, as I gathered them up and carried them out to the first rack. The top of each panel is mounted on a stainless steel rod and I added the heavy duty garden stakes along the top in between the new stainless rods, to add more support.
Note the two new, extra long stainless rods. Each panel is cinched together with a heavy duty zip tie, tightening it down on the rod.
Heavy duty zip ties hold together the edges of each panel in place on the rods. The inside white zip tie is there only to keep the yellow tie & wire from sliding inward.
A smaller zip tie was added inside on just the rod (not holding anything), but will help keep the outside yellow zip tie from sliding inward.
The tops of the panels are all zip-tied to the garden stakes and the top wire 'ceiling' along the way, closing all the gaps at the top. All I have to do is cut the 3 zip
ties holding each panel to the next at the seam, leaving the zip ties
at the top that hold it to the extra heavy rods on the top, lift the
panel up and walk in.
Each rectangle is 2" wide - you can see the cage is at least 10" out in front of each gourd entrance.
As with my other rack that I enclosed a couple of years ago, I will need to work a little more slowly and be more cognizant of where my face is at all times, since some martins tend to flush out of the gourd at the very last second.
The fencing is 48" high so it drops below the most bottom gourds about 6". I will have to monitor to see if that's going to be sufficient
East Rack - 3/26/2016
Mid Rack - 3/26/2016
Each cage took 35 - 40 minutes to install and I was really glad that I made the changes early in the day, since it took the colony some time to adjust to their new surroundings. So, 38 feet of mesh wire fencing, a couple of packs of zip ties, some heavy duty stainless steel rods, 24 feet of undersill trim to make some nice, 4"x4" landing spots, a handy pair of wire cutters and a good pair of leather work gloves and I'll be able to better sleep at night. I think my most stressful time last year was when the new fledges came home late in the evening and hunkered down on the inside gourd arms. I knew those 'easy catches' were going to attract the owl and I spent many hours & nights outside with them, trying to gently encourage them inside or leave the site. With these new cages, they can safely roost on the arms if they want and stick their tongues out at the GHO when she comes.
Some were initially frightened by the changes, fluttering around and around the outside of the cages, while others flew under and straight up to their gourd without missing a beat. Some ended up hanging upside down on the cage, and some landed on top and dropped right through to their gourd. Some of the territorial fighting resumed, with the males quickly reclaiming their gourds as their competitors dropped through the top of the wire in full battle mode, proving that each of these birds have their own character and personality as unique as we humans.
I had a really hard time not laughing out loud (and I can laugh really loud) at some of the antics in this video. Enjoy!
My apologies - I'm a bit behind this year with my reporting, since I've
been on work travel to Germany. But now that I'm back, it's time to get
back into the swing of things and nothing makes me feel more rooted
again than getting outside and preparing all the bluebird, tree swallow
and purple martin housing. Spring has come so early this year and has
definitely caught me off guard!
On Sunday, February 28th, while still in Germany, I received an email from my husband. It was 7 AM his time and a single adult male purple martin had just arrived at my site! This is the first time a martin has arrived at my site in February. The earliest arrival ever was March 12th. Thank goodness I had uncovered my Trendsetter before I left on the trip! Bob quickly added some pine needles to help provide some warmth at night, when the temps were still dipping down into the low 30's.
Many of my martins are already pairing up.
Two days after the purple martin arrived, on March 1st - the first tree swallow of the year also appeared. As of yesterday, I now have over 20 martins. I guess the one thing I can say about hosting purple martins - every year is different!
First Tree Swallow of the season. As of 3/20/2016, there are now over 17 TRES here.
This year, I've made some changes to my PMCA Deluxe Racks so they will be better protected from my local Great Horned Owl. I'll be posting about that exercise in a couple of weeks! I haven't seen him/her this year but back in late December, I did get to watch this Barred Owl hunting in the north Savanna early morning fog for about an hour.
One of my friends made this very cool rendering of one of the photos I made. Pretty neat! Hopefully, he/she won't also decide purple martins are on the menu this summer. :(
While getting back in the swing of things, I noticed my list of Missouri landlords has grown to 73! I'll be writing more about our small, growing community and some of its members later this spring, but I wanted to first write about a very special landlord who was also a very dear, cool friend.
Bob Peterson was one of the first people we met when we moved to Licking 10 years ago. He owned C-Hwy Garage north of town and my father-in-law introduced us when we were trying to find a part for an old used tractor we had. As I became more educated about hosting purple martins, I began to take notice of his purple martin house. It was a very old S&K house and he had 3 pairs of HOSP and 1 pair of martins in it during summer of 2009. I asked him if he enjoyed hosting purple martins and he said, "Yes, if only I could get rid of those "chippies". I asked him if he'd like some help, which of course he accepted and that started my friendship with him. After 4 days, we had trapped and eliminated over 55 English House Sparrows. We cleaned out his house and that summer, he hosted 3 pairs of martins and he fledged 9 young.
After learning more about starlings and house sparrows, and doing nest checks, Bob was hooked. He came to all of my open houses and presentations and quickly became an advocate for purple martins also, obtaining 10 copies of my newsletter and distributing it to everyone he knew each month. In spring of 2011, Bob, being his usual creative self, tore down his old house and using supplies he found around his junk yard and the knowledge I had gathered for him on the internet, built a gourd rack out of 3" steel pipe and an old satellite dish. After 3 days, it was ready to go and I went over to celebrate its christening with 8 new Troyer Vertical gourds. That first year, Bob had 8 pair of martins.
When it came to banding time, Bob didn't want to miss out on the event.
He was here every time and he helped keep the nestlings moving and me
organized. He loved it and he loved learning.
On July 3, 2013, I was so thrilled for him when he called and told me he
thought he had a banded bird at his colony. What were the odds that
someone from 6 miles away who had probably handled that same bird as a
nestling, would attract one of them to his site? We confirmed that day,
PUMA band # A675 (an adult male purple martin banded at my site on July
6, 2011) at his site and that bird was still at his colony last year as
he hosted 22 pair. Bob had a quick and clever mind. And I don't think I've ever met a more dependable friend - you could call and before you finished your question, he had already come up with a solution for whatever it was you were asking about. When my husband needed to find a disc to tear up some ground for a new orchard, Bob arrived that weekend with his old tractor and disc and he and my husband had it ready with a few hours.
He was a master gardener and it especially thrilled him to introduce young children to the joy of growing their own vegetables.Bob would call and laugh as he told me how 'his' purple martins would fly low over his head and try to scare him off as he lowered the rack to do nest checks. He was preparing to put up a second gourd rack this year before the season started. On Saturday, March 5th, he walked through my mind as I thought about calling him and asking him if he was ready to put it up yet but, I didn't make that call. On Monday, March 7th, I was deeply saddened to find out he had died on Friday, March 4th. Bob was 60 years old.
I'm not sure yet what will happen to Bob's colony or if A675 will return this year. I haven't been able to bring myself to go over to visit his family and find out what will happen to his colony yet. I'm sure if his rack is taken down, his family will be erecting it near their own homes as they love purple martins as much as Bob did. But one thing is for sure - Bob will be missed. I will miss his quirkiness and his quick-witted retorts, but most of all, his martins will most certainly miss him.
I still have 2 pair of purple martins here with their young. Two nests with 5 nestlings each, chirping away, preparing for flight. Thanks to all the rain through July, there is a veritable bounty of dragonflies, butterflies, bees, and many, many more insects flying these days, so there is plenty of food for them.
I passed by my native wildflower specimen garden yesterday and as I quietly watched all the insects, flitting about, I thought, "hey, make a movie to show this and you can set it to music"! Then, it suddenly occurred to me - I had all the background music that I needed and as I listened, it made me grin, ear-to-ear as I compared them to human parents trying to get their stubborn teenagers to do something they didn't want to do. HA! Even birds have to deal with teenagers!
My 2 pair of adults were flying about, screeching to their kids to come fly with them and they even made a couple of cameo appearances in my movie below. "It's time to go!" they seemed to say with a great deal of urgency. Their many different vocalizations made me laugh and snort while taking the flower garden video. They sounded like they were trying to be very stern and convincing, attempting to get the youngsters to launch. It's surprising how loud they were - it was even more surprising how loud their kiddos were as they chirped back to their parents, demanding another bug.
It worked for one gourd as all the young from one of them finally fledged yesterday. Today, I only see the one remaining pair, persistently trying to coax their young out. There are regularly 8-10 visitors here every morning, but for such a social bird, they are surely desperate to leave and join the larger flocks at some of the roosts.
Enjoy the video - both the visual beauty of the insects, but also the beautiful audio. I think it's one that I'll listen to several times over the winter months, until the next season begins.
We have gotten a lot of rain in the last couple of weeks - most of it in the last 2 days. Today, I feel like everything is out of sorts, as my Grandmother used to say. Nothing feels right. After almost 2 years of drought, I thought we were going to lose all our fish in our ever-shrinking pond this summer. But now it's overflowing its banks - way out of bounds. I now have to worry that our bass and bluegill will end up in our neighbor's pond as our overflow has backed up and it drains into his pond. Get back in your own pond.
The pond is well over 15' out of its banks - we normally ride our 4-wheelers down this path that is now filled with water.
Somehow, with so much rain, grass is growing in our driveway - way out of bounds. I should celebrate the ladino clover in the middle of it that magically, somehow appeared. You can't mow this stuff too much either. After 5 or 6 mowings already, it is still blooming!
Everything is so doggone wet! Along with 3 launch failures this morning. They are wet & stinky. They're not happy about this turn of events. Neither am I.
3 new failed launches this morning
I swear, even the ticks are parachuting off the door trims and landing on my head. I don't know where they're all coming from. I may choose to borrow Nikki's Frontline.
Even Olivia seems out of sorts - all wet and cranky. As I was filming her playing hide-n-seek, she stopped on the open deck and turned toward me. As she gazed at my toes, I suddenly realized just how vulnerable my bare feet were. I decided it was time to start acting like I knew how to River dance and I kept my feet moving until I was safely back inside the enclosed porch.
But at its root, I know why I'm out of sorts today. After checking on my colony every 10-15 minutes last night, I was alarmed when my GHO flew out from under my deck. I hadn't seen her come in and when I went to check the videos, I found that she had attacked the Trendsetter in between one of my checks, in a spot where a new fledge had been trying for an hour to get into a cavity. Check out the video below - she comes in from the left and hangs on to the Trendsetter for an eternity. In the video, the fledge flies past the camera during the attack, so fortunately, he lives to tell the tale. Other martins flushed from the other racks too. Silly birds....stay put!! Worst of all, my stupid game camera (seen in the video below) is only 12-13 feet away, didn't capture any of it. I checked it today - 99% battery. In the heat & humidity, I was tempted to boot it across the field. Instead, I rebooted it the standard way - hopefully, it won't have anything to capture tonight, but will be able to if needed.
After seeing a video from 12:10 AM on 6/30, it became obvious that Ellie Mae is going to have to visit the unemployment lines. Absolutely useless. As have been most of the other methods that people have suggested. I am out of ideas - it is check.mate. She will always be here. Nothing scares her.
Lights - tried it - failed.
Radio - tried it - failed.
Lights + radio - tried it - failed.
Motion detection lights - tried it - failed.
Scarecrow - tried it - failed.
Let's face it; the only protection that works 100% of the time are the owl cages. I have plenty of alternate food here - rabbits, feral cats, moles, voles, mice, snakes, etc. Yet, my owl prefers an easy-to-get meal. Well, she won't get one here as long as they stay behind the cages. Otherwise I can't guarantee anything. But I won't kill her. Another one will only take her place. We will just do the best we can with *preventative* measures and accept that I have a beautiful, very smart owl. I just need to be smarter.
I will enjoy the positive things. At least the Compass Plant - after 6 years of waiting - is finally blooming. This makes me happy today. Mag.freaking.nificent!!! Beautiful, isn't it? Definitely worth the wait.
Compass Plant - 6 years old, finally blooming.
So, what do you do when you have such an off-kilter, out-of-sorts day? Well, you suck it up. Thaw out some crickets, soak them in some bird-vitamin solution and stuff the wet kids full of food. Leave them in a bucket until they're dry and put them back out in a dry gourd on the rack from whence they came.
You stop and enjoy the clasping milkweed that has grown out of bounds - where no seed has been planted (not by you, anyway).
Clasping Milkweed (thanks for ID info to Louise Chambers)
You stop and watch your happy, chattering purple martins chasing down the bug hatches in the field, because despite my owl's best efforts, they are clearly undeterred in their mission to feed their kids, and get them flying.
You herd the fish back into the main body of the pond, by splashing about in your muck boots. You stop and enjoy the common milkweed that is now spreading out into the yard and tell Mr. Freeze he no longer needs to mow there.
Then you park your butt on the porch with a good book, a glass of wine, a pair of binoculars and your muck boots (just in case you have more launch failures) and watch your colony for the rest of the day. After all, it is still MY little piece of heaven, and despite all the challenges, I am diggin' it here at Gobbler's Knob.
I woke up at 3:40 AM Monday morning and decided while I was up anyway, I would check on my purple martins before snuggling back in. With our new extremely bright LED spotlights shining on the colony, I could see every rack very clearly. Lo and behold, there was the mighty Giselda, sitting tall and pretty, very proud of herself, on my West Gourd rack. I watched her for a couple of minutes, then went out to scare her away. When I checked the videos from the game cards and my Foscam camera Monday afternoon, I found that she had been here quite a while - from around 12:35 AM until I ran her off at 3:40 AM.
I had quite a few of what I thought were 'false triggers' on my game cameras, but in viewing the video from the Foscam camera, I now know why. Giselda had been a very busy girl for those 3+ hours. On Sunday, since I have many nestlings that will be fledging over the next week or so, the hawk attacks are increasing, I deployed a lot more decoys. When my GHO came to hunt, apparently, she thought the decoys were making the noises she was drawn to, and she was attacking them, just out of range of my game cameras. The 'false triggers' weren't false at all - she was just too fast for the cameras to capture her as she launched her assaults.
In this video, she had just tried a grab on the decoys by my game cameras, failed and landed up there to reevaluate her prey.
Then I found a video that made my stomach turn over and my heart skip a beat. I watched it over & over to make sure I wasn't making it all up in my head, since the quality is not that great. She was now attacking my housing and gourds from underneath. After hitting the house - in the video below, it appears she tried to unsuccessfully land on the predator guard on that pole. She flapped about, but could not gain footing on it, then fell into the yard. She roamed around on the ground for about 4-5 minutes, then, after moving about 10' away from the East gourd rack (rack on the far left), she launched an assault under the rods that protect the gourds and attempted to grab one of the gourds.
Luckily, I let my gourds swing freely - moving back & forth with the wind, so, along with the rods interfering with her flapping wings, she could not get a grip on the swinging gourd and attempt to tear off the tunnel. Even if the martins inside had flushed at that moment, she was still in such a precarious position that she could not grab one of them. Still....it had to be sheer terror for the martins inside.
But the most surprising video of the night? The one where she launched herself from the top of a gourd rack, flew past my camera and into the porch area where the new, bright LED lights had attracted a bazillion bugs. I'm not sharing the video here as it's blurry when she flies by both times and of no use here. She spent over 5 minutes under there - my guess is she was chasing a mouse or some of the large bugs, but the video only shows her entering and leaving the area. Nope - this girl is not bashful of any lights!
Ellie Mae is now officially back on duty. Stuffed with balloons to make her lighter and hanging on my shepherd's hook. I attached a helium-filled balloon to also help drag her around and keep her moving on the hook, and that's working really well. I'm moving her around the yard, so my GHO doesn't get too comfortable.
So far, no sightings since 3:40 AM Monday morning. I'm hoping we can get through the next couple of weeks with this simple tactic. Much to my husband's dismay, after seeing the grainy video and the low-quality video of her fly-in to the porch, I started talking about another camera. He's praying the owl will leave before I solidify that plan. Me too.
