Tell it to the Trees

I often catch a lot of grief on the purple martin Facebook sites for my suggestions to struggling landlords to cut down a single or even multiple trees. Some "environmentalists" take my suggestions to cut down a tree as 'flippant', cavalier and careless. Rest-assured, I do not take those suggestions lightly - especially when it comes to my own property. It actually breaks my heart to have to cut down a tree.

Nevertheless, we have lots of cedar trees - really old cedar trees -- on our property that need to go (for a variety of reasons). Regardless of the fact that I'm allergic to them, I've always admired their beauty and resisted the urge to give the greenlight to Mr. Freeze to cut them down. All this to say, the decision to take out these 2 cedar trees this past weekend have been a subject of much emotional debate for about 5 years now.

The large cedar in the foreground and the 2 to the right in the background were targeted for eradication.

The largest cedar on the left was consistently used by hawks to launch surprise attacks on my purple martin colony.

Three trees were originally on the chopping block, but after taking down 2 of them, my heart couldn't take anymore, so I asked my “Paul Bunyan” to stop and we compromised with a very aggressive limb trimming for the third tree. For the last few years a resident Sharpie and later a Cooper's hawk have both taken advantage of the cover that these large cedars provided, and launched surprise attacks on my colony.
Eventually, maybe...some other day the third tree will go down too after I've had time to heal and assess, but not today.

Cedar tree providing cover for the hawks is gone.

View from the gourd racks - another 100' of visibility.

The hawks' approach has been pushed back another 100 feet. She will now have to cross this clearing to attack and she will surely be spotted.

The far right cedar tree got a reprieve and only received an aggressive limb trimming.

As a way to comfort myself after cutting a tree down, Bob and I either find a ‘volunteer’ (a small tree sapling of a desirable variety) or plant more trees in a better location than the one we removed.
A lot of dire information about climate change has been on the news lately, along with some very cost effective measures to counter it – as in, plant a tree! I did some research this week and it turns out that incidentally, Bob and I have been planting the *best* trees that also help sequester the most carbon.  
Eastern white pine trees, sycamores, hickory trees, poplars, silver maples and a few other species, according to this website (among many) that I’ve read:  https://www.thoughtco.com/which-trees-offset-global-warming-1204209    and:
This site: https://www.americanarborists.net/tree-tips/2017/july/what-trees-are-best-suited-for-the-changing-clim/
“Fast-growing trees with large crowns”, they say.
Trees that are too crowded do not do well either - regardless of their age. They won't spread their branches when a tree is overcrowding them, therefore reducing the amount of leaves they grow. Cutting down their neighbors and planting a replacement in another area will provide much more benefit to the environment and the climate, than overcrowding your stand.

Oaks to the south of the cedars provide mottled shade. Lower limbs are kept trimmed up high to encourage growth.

But we have multiple goals here on Gobbler’s Knob and when multiple goals can be accomplished with minimal effort, that’s even sweeter. We've been planning for over 2 years to plant this area (approx. an acre) with native wildflowers and grasses and I could hardly contain myself when I ordered my seed from Hamilton Native Outpost yesterday.  We've killed the fescue growing here and Bob has been discing the ground over & over to ensure everything is dead.
The Shadows and Sunbeams mix did so well in our western extended Savanna, that I'm ordering more of it for the large oak-shaded areas. And the oaks in the above pictures provide the perfect amount of shade for this mix.

The Shadows and Sunbeams mix in my 'eastern Savanna'

Some of the cedar trees we have removed have been replaced with much nicer trees. Swamp white oaks are one of our favorites.

 

 

 

 

2 Swamp white oaks planted 8 or 9 years ago.

This hickory tree was a 'volunteer' and after much expert trimming by Mr. Freeze, it has now chosen a primary and is starting to grow rather quickly. It received a lower limb-trimming this past weekend to encourage more top-growth.

Hickory Tree

This plum grove (below) consists of over 40 trees. We planted them as small saplings that we purchased from the George White nursery in 2008. I remember crawling around on my knees to cut down the large ragweed that grew up around the small saplings, threatening to choke them out. Now, they're spreading and stronger than ever.

We planted 3 -"Mighty Moe" (poplar) trees in 2012. The purple martins love to use the new leaves out of the tops each year to line their nests. The purple martins stripping out the leaves are a large part of the reason the trees struggle to grow each year. Mr. Freeze walks by and (jokingly) tells them each year, "get outta my poplar trees, or I'm gonna get the shotgun". hehehe! They're not skeered.

2 large poplars. There were 3, but my neighbor got drunk one night and ran one of them over. The purple martins love to pick their new leaves.

 We planted this river birch (and several others around the property) around 2009 or so. We needed it mainly for shade, but I love the multi-colored trunk shavings that peel off the trunk. They are so beautiful. Now if the limbs would just quit drooping down! It really loves the water runoff from the house and is growing exponentially every year!

This "Shingle Oak" was another volunteer. It has received some 'trimming love' from my expert arborist, Mr. Freeze.

Shingle Oak (also known as "Water Oak")

Another Swamp White Oak -obviously, the ground is not as favorable for this tree as in other spots, but eventually, it will be a beautiful tree.

One of my favorite Swamp White Oaks that we planted along our driveway. Mr. Freeze gives it a lot of love.

 This picture and the second sycamore tree below are my favorite trees. They were both 'volunteers' and have grown so fast that I'm afraid to get caught up in their vortex each time I walk by. During late summer, it is such a hoot to stand under them and listen to the cicadas 'singing'. And they drop so many seeds. I have 3 of them now.

Sycamore #1 - approx. 14 years old

Sycamore #2 - approx. 14 years old

These Eastern white pine trees were planted in April, 2010.

Check them out now. 

 We planted more of them at the end of our driveway.

The same trees today: 

The George White nursery here in Missouri is wonderful - carrying all the native trees for Missouri in very cost-effective bundles. I encourage everyone to order or visit this nursery and see what a great job they do with providing Missourians with a wide variety of trees and shrubs (check out their chokeberries!).  Seriously, how cool is that??

Purple Martin Housing Cleanup - 2019

At the end of every season, I always dread the inevitable cleanup. I watch other landlords post that they either don't take their gourds down nor do they remove the nests; OR they take them down, pull out the old nests and just store them (no washing).
Me? I can't stand the idea of a mite outbreak one day next spring as the weather is warming, right when I'm pulling the gourds out of storage.  So - somewhat reluctantly, after the first freeze in the fall, I find some teenagers that are willing to do the hard work and we embark on the housekeeping duties. After watching the weather reports, I haul all my cleaning equipment out - the scrubbing brushes, the 'greenies', vinyl gloves, heavier dish-washing gloves and 4 gallons of bleach.
Yesterday, November 3rd, happened to be the 'perfect' day, so by 11 AM, we were ready - 96 gourds and 96 lids.
I still only offer 84 gourds, but now, after a landlord retired his racks & gourds last year, I have extra gourds - they really help with the nest checks / changes!
I always hate the part where the old nests have to be removed, so while I pull the gourds off the racks, the young lady and the two gentleman that came this year emptied them. "EEwwwwwww, here's a dead bird", or "uggghhh, I cracked an egg, OMG - that's GROSS"!, cracked me up as we moved across the three racks.
Luckily, those comments were few & far between and evenly spread between the three gourd racks....verifying that I had no serious owl predation the last month of the season. Whew!
Over the years of doing this, I've developed a system and some handy tools - mainly from The Dollar Store - lots of brush varieties and scrubbers. The most handy tool is this "wine bottle washer" that my husband found a few years ago.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Buon-Vino-Spray-Wand/112366978?fbclid=IwAR2CSIncgnffn0A-wYo60ywFOT8dbUft4z1UR3s84_xKeAE3fCN0GGIoo3M

It's a little more expensive now (5 years later), but WORTH.EVERY.PENNY!  After emptying the gourds of all nest contents, I rinse them out with this sprayer.  Water comes out the tip in a 360 degree circle as well as straight out the end of the tip too, so yeah, you get wet. After the initial rinse, they go into the large tub (the largest Rubbermaid tub I could find) where they soak in the 10% bleach solution for about 10 minutes.

The worker bees then begin to scrub off everything they can.  As we worked yesterday, the 2 young men gave the young lady quite a hard time. The 3 of them were really cranking and when I told them that, the guys snarked and said, "well, we're really only 2 and a half". LOL So, I replied back, "Yeah, but she's doing FIVE jobs and you guys only have ONE!". Yes, she's small, but she's a little firecracker. Gotta stand up for the girl on my team!
As they washed, we would hang the gourds on these arms where I do the final rinse with my magic wand.

By then, everything is loose and rinses out really well...or well enough at least, for my tastes.
We pile them on the trailer, wait a day or two for them to dry, then Bob and I bag them up in the large leaf bags you can buy at Walmart.  Safe & sound - and NO MITES - until next year. This has kept my gourds in excellent shape and some of them (the horizontals) are over 11 years old.
Another tip - other than paying the teenagers well (so they'll come back next year, despite the nasty work), feed them well too! Dr. Pepper, summer sausage, string cheese, variety of chips and water.....
I no longer have to worry about getting too old to handle all this ... turns out, there are some great parents raising some great kids around my area that are always willing to work. I am indeed, very fortunate.

Thank you, Brenda - you have some awesome children!
Thank you, Carly, Jayden & Jay - you guys rock!! (I hope you guys still want to come back next year ....even if you're really sore today).

A Summer of Purple Martins and Flowers

With all the rain we've had this year, the purple martins' nestlings have been feasting on dragonflies galore. Fledging began here on Thursday, June 20th with 2 nests and as of now, June 30th, about half of my nests have fledged. I had 79 pair this year (up from 76 pair last year) and currently 71 of those nests contain 313 young. That means there are approximately ~150 new fledges and 158 adults (~308 birds from my colony) filling the skies around Gobbler's Knob....and slaughtering every insect in sight. This year I will have 8 late nests - most of them hatching now and over the next couple of days, meaning they won't fledge until the end of July / early August.
My colony is 13 years old this year. This is the first season, since my 3rd or 4th year, where over half my pairs are sub-adults. It's as if there has been a 'changing of the guard' this year. While my number of pairs is up from last year, the number of young that have hatched and survived is lower and I attribute that to the much 'younger/ more inexperienced" sub-adults that I have this year. Along with that change, has come the inevitable passing down of the message, "hey, did you know there's also a Great Horned Owl that lives here?"  Yes, she's still here....and she has caught at least 10 adult martins this year and now, with so many new fledges returning at night, we're moving to DEFCON 1 and many sleepless nights until our season ends.
This is a mid-day video of my colony with approximately half the adults still feeding their young during the day.
[After clicking on the video, you can then click on the YouTube link and go to full screen for the HD version].

Below is a video of 300+ purple martins coming home in the waning sunlight. The chaos caused by over 150 new fledges not knowing to which gourd they should return is pretty hilarious. The ruckus heals my heart and makes all the pain, sweat & tears of the season just melt away. Maybe that's the way nature intended it? Ending the year with this kind of party always gives me a sense of accomplishment and renewed hope. Pretty fantastic and fun!

For the first time in our 13 years of hosting Tree Swallows, they are all producing a second brood this year. So unusual - but I'm happy about that! Normally, they've left by now and aren't around to help with the hawks that start trying to take the martin fledges, but this year, the little "Orcas" are helping out and I'm loving it!
The purple martins are not the only ones who have benefited from all the rain this year. Our native wildflower field has been bustin' loose too! We have had way more coneflowers this year. And while the 'Queen Anne's Lace' is a native, it is really annoying because it too has benefited from the excessive rain and is blocking the view of some of the other natives. Nevertheless, we are thrilled with the amount of flowers and abundance of insects they're currently attracting.
This is a video from 3 different viewpoints of our most-mature native wildflower field. I love the variety and how there is always something in bloom here. I didn't realize until after I had already processed the video, that I still had 'image-stabilization' turned on for my camera, so some of the video will blur a little bit, but as I pause in various places it does clear up. I have had this video camera for several years and I still can't figure out how half the crap that I really don't need, gets turned on!!  Bummer - definitely need to practice more with that! 

I have a St. John's Wort bush in my landscape bed that has been spreading all kinds of fertile seed and I can't keep up with pulling all the small shoots that are coming up. Soooooo, if you want a St. John's Wort bush or some seed, contact me! I'll let you have all you want - but you have to dig it out. Ha!  The bonus is that the bumblebees absolutely LOVE St. John's Wort. It's hard to get a good video of the bumblebees because they move so quickly - but in this video, you can see the prolific blooms on the St. John's Wort too.

Lastly, a quick tour of our savanna area - scattered oak trees with broken sunlight. We planted this area in December 2014 with the Native wildflower mix from Hamilton Native Outpost called, "Shadows & Sunbeams". This is its 5th season and it is absolutely beautiful. The birds are now scattering the grey-headed coneflower seeds and the plants are coming up all around the property.
Come with me and take a tour of my favorite spot.

QUIZ TIME! If you watched all five of my videos on this blogpost, you will find that three of them have at least 2, maybe 3 bird calls in common. Can you name them?

Purple Martin Sub-Adults Arrive in Missouri

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.

I have no idea yet how many purple martin eggs I have, as my yard seems to be knee-deep in water & mud. We need a break - soon.

Feed the Bees: Weeds Deserve Love Too

As the weather is warming, I'm beginning to notice more insects out & about here in Missouri. The most annoying one being the ticks that have become active now. From a bird's eye view, it doesn't look like there would be much food out yet for the insects and small butterflies I've been seeing.
But to see, one only needs to look closer.
Drive down any road in Missouri right now and you will see a beautiful hue of purple on each side of the road.  To many people's surprise, it's a WEED, but each plant has a terrific cluster of flowers in early spring.
It's called "Henbit" and it's part of the mint family. And while it's a non-native weed, it is not a serious one because its roots are so shallow and it fades before other native wildflowers being to grow, making it a nice 'cover crop'.  I tried to rid my yard of it a few times, but I just gave up after I realized, 1) the insects like it and 2), it fades rather quickly.  Additionally, it is an edible plant and may be eaten as a potherb or added to spring salads.

Henbit

Dandelions:
The lowly dandelion has come a long way. This plant is native to Eurasia, but was known to Arab physicians in the early Middle Ages for its herbal properties in aiding digestion. It is thought that dandelion was first introduced into North America in 1620. Seeds transported onboard the Mayflower were planted in the colonies as a food crop, with dandelion leaves providing a source of vitamins and minerals for early settlers. (Source: https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2019/3/dandelion/)

The petals are so perfect right now:

Dandelion growing in a patch of Henbit

Among our other blooming plants right now is the fragrant sumac. This is a native plant to Missouri and is not a weed, although it does look like one. It is a thicket-forming shrub, growing mostly in the shade or at least near other trees. And if you look really close, you will see why the bees, flies and butterflies are flocking to it in droves right now. It has the cutest, tiniest blossoms!

In the "Blue" butterfly species, I found a Boisduval's Blue on the fragrant sumac today! Score!

Among other insects I found on it, there were tons of flies. Not sure what type these are, but there were lots of them.

 This Red Admiral found the fragrant sumac quite attractive too.

Blue-Winged Teal Ducks

The plums are also blooming - they are a big hit with my honeybees and the bumblebees!

But, the biggest show-off is always my Indian Paintbrush. It doesn't look very bright yet as it hasn't reached full bloom.  In a couple of days though my fields will be bright red. And it's starting to spread to other places where it wasn't even planted. That was a nice surprise.

Feed the Bees: Let Sleeping Logs Lie

Along with posting about Purple Martins and our native prairie restoration efforts, I'm starting a new series here on my blog, called, "Feed the Bees". With the recent reports of the decline in the insect populations, it's becoming more & more imperative that we start taking a look at what we can do in our own micro-environments to help maintain or restore the insect populations. All life depends on our pollinators and if they die, we die.

I used to think the Virburnum, dandelions and wild plums were the first bloomers in spring. But this year, I was delighted to find this wee little flower growing all over my yard. It's called, Houstonia Pusilla - or more commonly:

Tiny Bluet, Small Bluet, or Least Bluet

As I've driven around Missouri in search of other purple martin sites and talked with people about their resident birds, I've seen a lot of man-made lawns and hay fields that really don't support the insect populations we need to sustain pollination.  But, I'm only one person.  I understand to some people, it can be daunting to try to figure out how to change a lawn into an eco-friendly garden that will support so many types of wildlife. With this blog, I'm hoping to encourage others to take baby steps towards supporting our insect populations, including ALL our pollinators, as well as reduce the back-breaking work that people do to maintain these sterile lawns.

Our "extended" Savanna - we were going to burn it this year (it's 4 years old), but life happens and we didn't make the window. So instead, we mowed down the dead stuff and mulched all the leaves. It's ready to be a bee-haven again this year.

 

We currently own 23 acres here in Licking, Missouri. For a long time, I was focused on picking up the dead branches that had fallen from some of the trees. It was back-breaking work. It was hard. And during the summer, it was hot and, even after spraying myself with Deet, I would still end up with a tick or chigger bite as my reward for my hard work. We would wait for it to rain, and then when there was little chance of a fire spreading to the neighbor's hay fields, we would burn all the old, dead and decaying wood.

We planted 50 of these wild plums as mere twigs(purchased from George White Nursery) in 2008 / 2009. I still remember crawling through the ragweed that got taller than the twigs and cutting it back to let the small trees get some sunlight. Today, 32 of them survived and on average they stand at approx. 14-15 feet and have a plethora of blossoms in the spring, providing a lot of early pollen & food for the bees.

 The plants in the southern fields have started to turn green.

The western half of the southern field - mowed and raked - will possibly be burned again next year. It has been planted for 7 years.

The eastern half of the southern field. mowed & raked to remove the duff. Also planted 7 years ago.

After reading more about bees however, I have learned that some of them actually NEED this dead, decaying wood in order to survive.  They also need undisturbed soil, covered with dead leaves, etc.

When Bob mowed the fields, he accidentally killed this black snake. It makes me sad when a snake dies, but we left it in the field for any scavengers to partake. Poor guy...wondering why he didn't hear the thundering of the tractor and get out of the way.

So, no more bonfires here on Gobbler's Knob to burn limbs or dead trees. From now on, we'll be piling up the dead wood and letting it decay. The larger limbs from these piles will be used to create new brush piles and cover for the resident quail (and other incidental wildlife that takes advantage of the refuge.

A dead tree. It was struck by lightning and then the insects and woodpeckers finished it off. We'll push it over and it will be at the base of the rest of the pile, providing food & cover for the bees & insects to make use of it.

We trimmed some of the lower limbs on our trees for two reasons: 1) Bob can mow under the trees now without getting slapped in he head by a low limb and; 2) the hawks that come after my martins won't be able to use them as cover. They will be piled on top of the dead tree log above and given over to nature's use.

Small limbs & rubbish will be piled up for the insects to make use of.

This will take a little bit of muscle, so Bob will use the tractor to push it all up together. Then, we'll make a nice brush pile for quail cover next to it. I can't wait to see what kinds of insects move in!

More limbs to add to the pile.

Supporting the Ground Nesters

How can we support ground-nesting bees and other ground-nesting insects?

1. Protect existing nesting sites (insects can be observed entering ground tunnels, small piles of soil often surround the entrances)
   • Do not disturb the soil (avoid tilling, digging, vehicular traffic)
   • Do not cover soil with mulch
   • Maintain existing vegetation, which is usually sparse, by removing strong-growing plants (shrubs, invasive weeds)
   • Nesting sites can be protected from predators like skunks and raccoons by covering the area with chicken wire
2. Create man-made nesting sites for ground-nesting bees
   • In gardens, areas can be dedicated for nesting sites. Rock gardens are ideal as they usually have well-draining soil and low vegetation. Some areas need to be kept free of vegetation. Rocks and clumps of perennials are helpful as orientation for bees to find their nest entrances. Bees choose sunny locations for their nesting sites and prefer slopes exposed to the southeast, which warm up quickly in the morning.

Supporting Tunnel-nesting Bees

How can we support bees nesting in wood tunnels and hollow stems?

• Leave dead trees standing as long as they are not a safety hazard.
• Do not remove dead wood and fallen trees from forests
• Pile up logs from cut trees (especially those containing burrows) to allow larvae of beetles, wood wasps and horntails to complete their life cycles, and to provide abandoned tunnels for nesting bees.
• Do not remove plant stems of dormant perennials and grasses from garden beds until early spring, and leave removed stems in a loose piles for as long as possible to allow young bees to hatch from their nesting material.
• Do not mow wild meadows more than once a year, ideally in early spring.

Shelter for Overwintering

It’s important to provide shelter for overwintering insects:

• As much as possible, keep leaf litter in woodlands and garden beds where it falls.
• Create stone, brush and wood piles as shelters for overwintering insects.
• Wait to cut down old stems and clumps of perennials until late winter or early spring.

Table 1. Nesting locations of common bee and wasp genera
Ground-Nesters:
Bare patches of well-drained soil, most often sandy or silty loam that does not collapse when dry and is soft enough for digging, but some species nest in pure sand, others in river banks that are periodically inundated	Mining Bees	Andrena
	Minute Mining Bees	Perdita
	Cellophane Bees	Colletes inaequalis
	Slender Sweat Bees	Lasioglossum
	Dark Sweat Bees	Halictus
	Green sweat Bees	Agapostemon, Augochlora, Augochlorella
	Digger Wasps	Sphex
	Horse Guard	Stictia
	Spider Wasps	Entypus
	Sand Wasps	Bembix
Wood and Stem-Nesters:
Tunnels in trees, logs, rotting wood, and also hollow stems of herbaceous plants and grasses, as well as wooden structures and old masonry	Mason Bees	Osmia
	Yellow-faced Bees	Hylaeus
	Carder Bees	Anthidium
	Leafcutter Bees	Megachile
	Large Carpenter Bees	Xylocopa
	Small Carpenter Bees	Ceratina
	Resin Bees	Anthidiellum, Dianthidium
	Mason Wasps	Euodynerus
Cavity-Nesters:
Abandoned mouse nests, cavities in the soil, in trees and buildings,	Bumble Bees	Bombus
	Paper Wasps	Polistes
	Yellow Jackets	Vespula

Purple Martin Season 2019 Has Begun

Two ASY male purple martins arrived on March 10, 2019 this year. This year's arrival is more back in line with my first 10 year average arrivals.

In all the years past, my martins had also arrived with the tree swallows, however, this year, a male tree swallow had actually arrived a week earlier. During the last few days the tree swallows have been swarming the nest boxes in the fields and my blue birds are not really thrilled with their arrivals.
They are such happy, cheerful little birds and love to fly up high with their bigger cousins. I was going to remove this perching pole this year, but since they seem to like it so much, I may have to leave it...I don't want to upset my fabulous sentries!

This year, I'm making more changes. A landlord decided he wanted to retire his colony, so I bought some of his equipment from him - namely another Super System. It is so much easier to do nest checks with the extended cages on these systems than it is with the round Deluxe gourd rack systems, so this year, I'm removing one of the Deluxe systems and by adding 4 more gourds to each Super system, I'll still be able to offer 84 gourds and my nest checks won't be so painful (literally - it was death by a thousand scratches in the round racks).

So, with this system, I'm designing the cages in the same way - since they work so well on the other racks. I'm extending the 4' gourd arms by adding an 18" aluminum angle arm. I drilled 2 holes to mount the extensions to the main arms, with another 2 holes on the very end, where I can mount the cage wire.

Then, I have laid a 6' piece of aluminum angle arms from corner-to-corner. We drilled holes in each end, so I can anchor them down with tie-wraps. This helps support the top cage wire, so it doesn't sag, and these arms are super-light.

Since I've removed one of the Deluxe round racks and I wanted to keep the same number of gourds, I added 1 gourd per arm on each rack, so I'm still at 84 gourds. For the end gourd, I replaced the straight arm with a 45 deg. arm, which effectively points the end gourd back inside the cage.

For this Super system above, I just replaced all the arms with the extra long arms I had purchased from Hilltop and have made it a perching rack / feeding tray / oyster -egg shell feeder. Bob was tired of seeing me stand on my 4-wheeler to try to fill the other tray on my old post, so we converted this one.

For now, I only have 10 martins here, so I'm taking my time and making sure I have everything the way I want it. Lesson-learned: it is super annoying to get into the heat of the summer with jumpers and not be able to easily put them back into their nests. This Great Horned Owl has made my life more difficult but as she has learned and adapted, so have I.
I'm also keeping the Deluxe gourd rack that I took down - you never know, I may change my mind when I retire and put it back up and expand my colony, but for now, I'm pretty happy with offering 84 gourds that are 100% protected from the owl, yet still being able to perform nest checks.
Lookout 2019 - here we come!