"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
With the final mass gourd cleanup completed and 2 coats of Pig Snot (my favorite car / motorcycle wax) applied to my predator baffles (which makes them super-slick!), I can now say that the Purple Martin Season of 2020 is officially closed.
We had a great Purple Martin year - 80 pair with over 305 young fledged. This year, everything seemed to get started about 2-3 weeks later than usual. On average in past years, we would normally only have 2-3 pair still trying to fledge their young around the first or second week of August. This year however, I still had around 25 pair up until August 18th. A very late season.
We had 4 confirmed kills by the Great Horned Owl - a 75% decrease over the last 6 years and that is definitely something I can live with. Last Fall, we opened up the East field even more by cutting down a few Eastern red cedar trees, and it worked - the hawk attacks were also greatly reduced. I was so relieved this year to have fewer successful attacks. While the trees were well over 150' away from the colony, in the prior years, the speedy little Sharpie and the Cooper's hawks had learned to use the trees for cover on their approach to the colony.
With a lot less stress this year from hawks & owls, it was much more fun to watch the martins fledge their young - they haven't a clue about Covid-19 and what the world is suffering through right now. But they do have their own worries - owls, hawks, bug supply, and climate change, just to name a few.
Bob and I notice that when my purple martins are here, along with the nesting bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, tufted titmice and others, we hardly ever see any bugs flying through the yard. The birds seem to keep the population of flying insects very controlled.
It is only after the nesting season ends and the purple martins have left for Brazil that I start to see more bugs around my yard again. Thousands of dragonflies appear, the Pennsylvania Leatherwings cover the Bidens and multiple wasp species descend on the Goldenrod.
Check out the video below, taken A view into some of the September & October bugs:
After all the other native wildflowers have gone to seed, the New England Asters, goldenrod (did you know that Missouri has over 23 species of goldenrod?) and bidens bloom & continue to provide food for the bees: And the fields light up with a sea of yellow and purple flowers. Yes, life is good here on Gobbler's Knob.
Pennsylvania Leatherwings on Missouri Bidens
Bumblebee with filled pollen basket on Goldenrod
A Wasp party on Goldenrod
Bidens, Indian grass, Goldenrod and Pickerel weed provide cover and food for insects, quail and all the other wildlife that choose to live on Gobbler's Knob.
This Guest post was written by my good friend in Corpus Christi, Mr.
John Barrow - purple martin landlord expert and all-around good-guy-extraordinaire. Thanks for sharing, John!
Winnowing Definition: (referring to a group of things, people, animals) to reduce something's size by separating the ones that are
useful or relevant from the ones that are not.
I have been
contemplating the effects of the post-fledge natural winnowing process on a
colony this season and, I am becoming convinced that a great deal (or majority)
of hatch year (HY) loss occurs in the week or two after fledging occurs.
At
my colony we had moderate drought in 2008, severe drought in 2009, and a banner
year in 2010. In 2008 we had numerous jumpers--at one point we were rehabbing a
dozen nestlings. In 2009, we had severe brood reduction due to weather related
events--nearly all in the nature of fewer eggs produced; many that were not incubated.
I recall we had only one jumper, but had 62 nest starts from 45 pairs. This
year (2010) we had laying and incubation of large clutches of eggs, with only
one jumper that was returned to fledge.
Fledging
each year, occurred in most cases over several days. That scenario, which is
probably typical, results in separation of the family unit as adults take their
new fledges to a presumably safe location and, starting individually, teach
them to find and catch food. Prior to fledging adults have already reduced
feeding of nestlings to encourage fledging, and as the post-fledging training
occurs, those left in the nest lose weight, often to critical levels. This is
what, in most instances absent mites, etc., I believe, causes jumpers. Not an
easy problem to deal with. You can stuff the jumper with food and stick it back
in the compartment you believe it belongs in. But that doesn't increase the feeding
by its parents. These late fledges are really in a battle against time to get
out of the nest, fly capably, and remain with their family group, in order to
survive.
Add
to this other typical behavior like the adults returning to the cavities with newly
fledged young--a form of post fledging memory stamping--and the ensuing
confusion as these newly fledged young are attacked, chased and threatened when
trying to reenter what is often someone else's turf, you almost certainly have
more family unit separation and confusion.
There
has been little study done of the effects of this post fledge winnowing period,
and I suspect study would be difficult and for the most part subjective. But it
is something I have been reflecting on. Did my adult pairs of martins that
fledged 3 young/per pair in 2009, and were probably better equipped to train
that lesser number and keep the family unit intact, have a substantially lesser
effect on the overall population, then those pairs in 2010 that fledged 6 or 7
per nest; but, that had more difficulty in training the individual fledges,
locating and preserving a safe and secure locale for staging that provided
areliable food source; and finally, in
keeping the entire family unit intact for the requisite training period to allow
the young to become independent? I think there are signals that the overall
population fluctuation of a certain area in a good year, may not be
significantly different than in a marginal year.
What
does it matter? Assuming there are substantial losses during this post fledging
period, what can be done to reduce it? Winnowing in this light is defined as
reducing the number of birds in a species until only the best ones are left. It
is natural selection at its purest.
It
is not maintaining a colony so large that it becomes a magnet for predators,
not only endangering adults during the nesting process, but more so, becoming
an attack zone for recently fledged hatch year birds whose survival is
dependent on their having a safe and secure training area to learn basic
survival skills as part of a family unit. It is not offering housing that
serves to maximize the confusion of family units returning to housing as part
of post fledging memory stamping at the colony, be it housing that is too
closely configured, or stacked row on top of row; it is not building a colony
of the size or in an area beyond the capacity of the immediate food supply.
Today was one of those days where it seemed like all the stars aligned and all the forces in the universe came together to make everything just perfect with hardly any effort at all. As David Gray, put it in the song, Babylon, "Saturday I'm running wild, and all the lights are changin' red to green." That was my day.
My purple martins have had a rough week - the rain and cold weather have not been optimal for them to find insects. Along with all the sub-adult arrivals the last few days, the adult males have also had to fight off the teenagers trying to run-away with their females. But, we made it through the worst of the weather, only losing 1 adult male. Today they woke up to a warm, foggy, misty morning and somehow they knew it was going to be a good day to find insects, so while waiting for the weather to clear, they hung out on the racks getting acquainted with some of their new neighbors.
So far, we've had 9 peaceful nights with no Great Horned Owl appearances. We're not missing her at all and today I celebrated our brief reprieve.
While it was warm out, I decided to check on the honeybee swarm that I captured 7 days ago. To my surprise, they had already built comb in about 1/3rd of each of 8 frames. All that work completed in only 7 days. Filled with nectar and pollen, I was mesmerized with the beautiful white comb and the perfect hexagon shapes. I could watch the building of the combs all day long. I've been pretty happy to find this swam seems to be reasonably gentle so far - they're turning out to be good neighbors.
With all the rain we've had, I was thrilled when I noticed all the new milkweed in the bed where we had kept the potted milkweed plants a couple of years ago before moving them out into the fields. Over 50 new common milkweed plants have sprouted from the broken rhizomes when we pulled the pots out, a few asters and 8 new butterfly milkweeds. Unexpected neighbors, shouldering their way through the mulch and reaching for the hidden sun today. I learned a couple of years ago that common milkweed really likes moist areas and butterfly milkweed prefers dry feet, so if it keeps raining, I'm not sure the butterfly weed will make it here.
But the best surprise of the day came when I noticed a female bluebird going into a nestbox that has been paired with a tree swallow box for the last 2 years and never had any occupants.
I currently have 14 nestboxes for other birds here as well - some of which I've setup with the slotted entrances so the tree swallows can enter them, but the slot keeps the English House sparrow out. Unfortunately, it also keeps the bluebirds out, so I have round hole boxes for them set around the property as well.
When I discovered in Jan. 2018 that this Barred Owl was using this bluebird box on my trail as a lunch & go, I decided to move the box to the field, away from the forest and pair it up with a tree swallow box.
I had heard it would work but wasn't confident of that, since I had witnessed the ferocious battles between the tree swallows and bluebirds in my yard before.
But today, on my perfect day, guess what I found? The tree swallows had 4 little white eggs in their own little nestbox, reserved special just for them and a bluebird pair had moved into the paired nestbox that faces the opposite way and they have 5 eggs. Finally, after 2 years!
What were the odds that everything would come together in such perfect harmony today?
I'm sure we'll eventually see my GHO, we'll have to deal with the evil little flies that kill monarch caterpillars, we'll have to keep watch for varroa mites and English House sparrows.
But today, there was peace & harmony on Gobbler's Knob.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
