Predator Guards: A Story of Love and Betrayal

Per the PMCA, pole-mounted predator guards are an important part of being a conscientious and successful landlord, yet at the beginning of each Purple Martin season, as sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the inevitable debates regarding whether landlords should use predator guards or not begin on the multiple online forums. Yet, I have never met a purple martin landlord that wanted to set up purple martin housing so they could offer 'free food' to a raccoon or a snake.

Screenshot taken from video by Dan Pancamo (Full video linked below). The bulge in the snake's head is from the first 8-day old nestling he just consumed.

So many Purple Martins are lost each year to snake and raccoon attacks. It makes me sad every season to read about the losses - sad for the landlords who worked so hard to attract them, sad for the purple martins who died needlessly, and even more sad for the loss of what could have been a productive site contributing to the overall population and well-being of the species. We need MORE purple landlords hosting these magnificent birds - but not just throwing up a pole and a house / gourds and ignoring it, because, that's where the predators will take advantage.  What we need are MORE purple landlords that know how to make their sites safe AND productive - the very pleasant side effect of that is the landlord has an even more enjoyable season.

After all, who wants to pull a snake out of their purple martin housing, or clean up the blood & mess after a raccoon attack? That's not 'enjoyable' to me. Who wants the stress of not knowing whether the surviving martins will return in the next season?

A landlord removed the predator guards for one night and found this snake in the cavity the next morning - full of 3 nestlings.

Many experienced landlords are well aware that after a predator attack, the surviving martins may never return - in fact, many sites remain empty for years afterward. People don't go out and buy chickens & ducks and then not protect them from the resident coyotes, raccoons & owls, so why are our purple martins - a resource that is so much more precious - treated as expendable?

A fourth nestling was found on the porch and had been squeezed to death by the same snake in the picture above.

The impact of a predator attack is well documented by the PMCA and by landlords who have experienced the regrettable losses firsthand - they will be the first people to tell you - "Don't let it happen to you".  Check out the link below to see what is the number ONE reason for why people lose their martins.

See the PMCA page: Twelve Reasons Why People Lose Their Purple Martins

By the time the martins get here, they have already had to deal with a multitude of obstacles and aerial predators. The PMCA estimates 50-60% of purple martins are lost during migration both to and from Brazil.  With such challenges and losses already, it becomes even more critical to protect them when they get here. I am a firm believer that we should NOT create a free 'all-you-can-eat buffet' for any predator by giving them free reign and unhindered access to our nesting sites.

The Basics- Recommended Predator Guards (from the PMCA): 

Pole Guards—Also called predator baffles, pole guards are cylindrical or conical in shape and help prevent raccoons or snakes from climbing up the pole.  No matter if your pole is 12 or 20 ft tall, round or square, metal or wood, it can easily be climbed by snakes or raccoons.  Pole guards are commercially available (PMCA recommends a quick release pole guard for ease of use) or you can make your own. Per the PMCA, they should be installed at least 4 ft above the ground (higher if possible), 8 inches in diameter, and 2 ft long.

Netting—For those in areas with large snakes 1/2 - 3/4" bird netting can be used as a secondary line of defense.  Netting should be placed above the predator baffle in puffy layers, ensuring there is no space for the snake to climb between the netting and pole, or over the netting. 

Electric Fence Guards -  If you have an electrical outlet nearby, or can connect to a fence charger, this is a great way to protect your poles from any climbing critters. The only drawback to this method is, unless you have your fencing also plugged into a backup power source, then a power outage would leave your poles open to a predator attack. Even a fence charger can fail though, so backup guards are still needed, in form of baffle and netting.

Predator Baffle w/ Netting - Materials & Mounting:

The combination of a cylinder / pole guard with the netting mounted above the guard will predator-proof your poles and protect your nesting martins.
You can purchase a 'quick release' predator baffle here: https://www.purplemartin.org/shop/

...or you can make your own.  Here's a link on how to make your own predator baffle / cylinder guard: https://www.purplemartin.org/uploads/media/8-2-predatorbaffles-496.pdf
**Note: A good coat of Carnuba car wax helps prevent your metal baffle from weathering and helps keep it smooth & slick so a predator cannot grasp it and bypass it. 
(See the bottom of this post for my DIY ideas for predator baffles).

For mounting my netting above my predator baffle, I use the following materials. 

My 'frame' to hold the netting - a piece of fencing - cut so that there are 'arms (wires)' to support the netting and hold it out
approx. 8" from the pole.

The top of my predator baffle is mounted up as high as I can comfortably reach. I then set the netting frame on top of the baffle and zip tie it together around the post. I can then just cut the zip ties and lower the system for nest checks later, then re-secure the frame with new zip ties.

The netting is approx 3/4" (you can use both 1/2" or 3/4") mesh layered & 'poofed' out and hooked on the wire frame hooks. The netting is available at Lowe's, Walmart, etc. Here's a direct link if you want to order from Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Easy-Gardener-604-7-x-20-Bird-X-Protective-Netting-For-Fruits-Vege/21945377

 

Electric Fence Guards: Some landlords prefer this method and if you know anything about electricity, then this is the absolute best way to go. You'll want something insulating your pole to ensure your pole itself is not electrified. The landlord below uses a four-foot tall piece of PVC pipe around his pole, then wraps that with approximately 24" tall hardware cloth. The hardware cloth is then attached to the 'live' wire. The few inches open at the bottom are left in case a bird comes in contact with the pole, he / she won't be electrocuted.

Photo provided by Malcolm Stephens, an experienced landlord who takes the protection of his very large purple martin colony very seriously.

You can either purchase a solar-powered fence charger or buy one such as the one below and enclose it in a weather-proof container.

Photo provided by Malcolm Stephens, an experienced landlord who takes the protection of his very large purple martin colony very seriously.

I am not an expert in this area, so if you'd like to try this method, you can either: Login to either of the most popular Facebook Purple Martin Forums (Purple Martin Fanatics or the Purple Martin Conservation Association) and ask for assistance with setting this up, or if you don't have Facebook, send me an email at purplemartin@centurytel.net and I will put you in contact with an expert who can advise you.

Snakes - Large & Small

Friends have shared their pictures with me of successful 'captures' of the snakes that never made it into their housing:

Snake ID: Texas Rat Snake

To remove any captured snake, hold the snake by the head while wearing heavy gloves and use scissors to cut the netting away from the body.  Snakes should be removed unharmed and released a few miles away from the colony.  Netting does not prevent raccoons from climbing the pole and should always be used along with a baffle.  Netting is a trap, rather than a guard and like all traps it needs to be closely monitored to ensure that any species caught by the trap are removed and released unharmed. **PLEASE NOTE: we should value our native predators and NOT kill them - they serve a purpose in our environment.

Snake ID: Texas Rat Snake

Don't let anyone tell you a snake cannot climb a pole - there are multiple recorded events showing they really can.

Photo provided by Greg Ballard - a southern purple martin landlord, where the rat snakes are HUGE!

Purple martins are at their most vulnerable when sleeping inside their nest cavities at night and have very little chance of escaping if a wily racoon or a snake comes calling.

From the PMCA: Once a snake has digested its meal and left, there are no signs that a predator has visited a site, other than missing eggs and birds.

 The next video is hard to watch (spoiler alert - the female, thankfully, escapes). But, I can't imagine putting my purple martins through this kind of terror. (Video credit: Dan Pancamo)

A landlord removed his predator guard for only ONE NIGHT. The snake in the picture below took advantage and wiped out all 4 nestlings overnight by eating 3 of them and the 4th was found dead on the house porch. How would you like to open a nest compartment and see THAT staring you in the face?

Snake ID: Texas Rat Snake

Snake ID: Black Rat Snake (Missouri)

A new landlord here in Missouri added the netting to her pole right after her first 2 purple martins arrived at her colony. She really didn't think anything would go after only 2 birds, but a few days after mounting the netting, she caught this snake before it destroyed what would have been her first and only pair of nesting purple martins.

The "Other" Ground Predator  - Raccoons

Raccoons can be found natively throughout most of the US and Canada, as well as in parts of Latin America, from Mexico extending down to the northernmost regions of South America. 
Raccoons are agile climbers, handling both wood and metal poles easily. Signs of a raccoon attack are finding severed martin wings on the ground, blood, fur and feathers on the martin housing and ground, and claw marks on wooden poles. Nesting material maybe hanging from entrance holes and doors may be pulled off.  

A landlord reported that nesting material had been torn out of each nesting cavity on this Trendsetter house. The torn-off wings and feathers were left on top of the house - a classic indication of a raccoon attack.

Feathers and a bent owl guard were clear signs of a raccoon attack.

Landlord Testimonial (northern Missouri): We left for a 4-day weekend and when we returned all three of our gourd racks (72 gourds) were totally empty. It was only early June (too early for the martins to have left already), so we knew something was wrong. After talking with Kathy and then lowering the housing and viewing the ground below the racks, we discovered that a local raccoon family had likely raided our gourd racks over the weekend. It was a bloody slaughter - feathers and torn off wings on the ground beneath the racks. We had seen the family of 5 raccoons in our nearby woods, but we did not have guards on our poles since we had no idea they (raccoons) could climb the poles.
**Note: It has been over 3 years since this attack, and no purple martins have returned to this site.

I always have at least 4 or 5 raccoons in a family here on Gobbler's Knob too. Last year, while monitoring my housing with a security camera to see what my resident Great Horned Owl was up to, I caught one of the raccoons on camera as he waddled across my yard and tested each guard to see if he could ascend and have a meal of purple martins. (He's hard to see, but click on the YouTube link after you hover over the video, then enlarge it - he enters from the left - watch for the movement).

With a decline in the number of landlords across the country offering housing, it becomes imperative that we offer safe housing to the birds we host. And, for the new landlords that are attracted to this hobby, it's really the responsibility of the experienced landlords to teach and help them provide safe housing. Really. It's not that hard, and with all the experienced landlords on the various forums, help is at your fingertips.

Our purple martins exhibit a lot of trust & faith in us by returning to our sites. It's up to us to not betray that trust by providing them with the needed protection.

A very special thanks to Louise Chambers for her most patient help with editing and providing some very helpful guidance in writing this post.

For more help dealing with aerial predators, you can access this link on my blog:
https://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-fob-part-3.html

More links for DIY guards:
https://www.zbestvalue.com/baffle0001.pdf
http://www.zbestvalue.com/baffleimprovements.htm

Purple Martin Arrivals - 2020 Season Begins and Prenesting Gourds

My bluebirds are a bunch of Divas. For about 5 months of each year, they pretty much have this whole 23 acres, along with 14 nestboxes to themselves. But when the first Tree Swallows arrive in Spring, the bluebirds become a bunch of whiny babies and fly from nestbox-to-nestbox, trying to dominate each one and bully the Tree Swallows away from *their* site.
My friend Jeff in Rogersville, Keith in Ava and myself always have a small competition going each year regarding who will get their martins back first. On Saturday, Feb. 29th, I had already rolled out 2 gourds since I just *KNEW* all three of us would be getting our martins back on the same day. It was a classic weather pattern for my arrivals - winds from the south and 60 degrees.
When I searched the skies first thing in the morning, the first tell tale sign was a little teal-colored, "orca of the skies" zooming around my backyard. In years past, my tree swallows have always been the first to arrive here on Gobbler's Knob, usually followed closely by a purple martin...or three.

Several of us that host tree swallows along with purple martins have nicknamed them "Orcas of the Skies"; one obvious reason is their coloring, but the biggest reason is how ferocious and brave these little birds can be when a hawk enters their territory. They are fierce and are a great bird to host along with purple martins - all they need is a nest box - similar to a bluebird's nestbox.
By Sunday, I still had no martins, so I checked the Purple Martin forum and found that Jeff and Keith BOTH had received several martins on Saturday already. I guess my purple martins are going to be slackers this year. Probably hanging out in Sikeston at Lambert's - "Home of the Throwed Roll", thinking they really meant, "Home of the Throwed Crickets".
With the weather still looking warm for last week though, I decided to go ahead and put out a few more gourds.
Since I get a lot of questions about pre-nesting gourds, I decided to make a short video to show how I do it. Please note - I use only gourds, but you can also pre-nest any housing that you provide.
It not only helps keep the martins warm by providing some insulation when they arrive in early March, it also gives your gourds / housing a more "lived-in" look and will help attract new martins, since they are "secondary cavity-nesters". Click here to read more about the tradition shift in their nesting habits.
Pre-nesting also ensures there's enough nesting material in the bottom of your housing to prevent the birds from slipping around on the flooring as well as preventing 'splayed-leg' syndrome in the nestlings.

Materials to NOT use:
- Do NOT use cedar chips / shavings. While they are purported to repel insects, they also absorb a lot of water and a wet nest is just as deadly to nestlings as are too many mites, etc.
- Do NOT use green grass - it has too much moisture in it and it will mold & rot in the nest.

Recommended Materials:
- Eastern White Pine needles - they 'shed' water and don't absorb it.
- Corn fodder -  some landlords that live near corn fields have reported their martins using this for their nesting materials. It also sheds water
- Straw - use only dry straw

Here's a video I made this past weekend, while waiting for my purple martin arrivals:

An ASY male martin did arrive at my site on Saturday, March 7th. That purple dot right in the middle of the Mark Twain National Forest - that's me - in the picture below.  You can report your arrivals too, to the Purple Martin Scout Arrival Study linked here:

Get ready - the purple martins are coming!  If you're a new landlord this year, you still have about 4-6 weeks to get ready, so don't panic. Obviously, the sooner the better - you want to do it right the first time!


 

For New Visitors to This Site

Since the Rural Missouri magazine article has been published, I'm creating this post with links to some of the articles I've written for new or hopeful purple martin landords.

You may find these articles helpful:

Attraction Techniques for New Sites: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/03/attraction-techniques-for-new-sites.html

Dealing with English House Sparrows and Starlings - Trapping & Shooting Techniques: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2015/02/trapping-and-shooting-strategies-for.html

English House Sparrow Control Myths:  https://www.purplemartin.org/uploads/media/22-3-housesparrowmyt-415.pdf

Offering Calcium to Purple Martins and Other Birds: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-incredible-edible-egg-shell.html 

Stopping Ground Predators from Killing Your Purple Martins:  https://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2020/04/predator-guards-story-of-love-and.html

Feed the Bees: Because You Can Never Have Enough Wildflowers

Last November I shared some pictures of the area we were planning to convert to all native wildflowers & grasses (Link here: http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2019/11/tell-it-to-trees.html).  Bob ran over this area several times with a disc to help kill the grass, but with our Yellowstone vacation and other activities, we weren't able to spread the seed during December or January as originally planned.
Realizing we were running out of time, we started watching the weather at the beginning of this week, and finally decided that today - if the ground had frozen hard enough that we didn't sink up to our knees in mud - we would finally hand-spread it all. This area was just too small and cluttered with trees to try to use a seed drill.
Yesterday, we found some vermiculite at Menards in Rolla, MO that was perfect to mix with all the seeds so that we could get a more even distribution when flinging the seed.  An added benefit of adding that stuff - it also helps you see where you've already spread seed as you walk through the field.

Vermiculite, ready to be mixed in with the seeds.

 Over 6 pounds of seed to spread - and when you consider how small some of the seeds are, that's a lot of seed!

Bob 'flinging' seed.

The freezing & thawing process, along with the snow, ice & rain over the next month will not only help stratify the seeds, but also naturally "plant" them, just as nature does it when left to Her own devices.
One Bonus - with a resident Great Horned Owl and Barred Owl, there won't be a lot of mice trying to steal the seed. At least, there won't be a lot of mice that get away with it anyway in this wide-open area! HA!

A panoramic view of 1/2 of the field we planted.

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?