Sad day for me

[Randall Duhon]

Well I found 1 more dead Martin yesterday and 3 more today. That makes 9 so far. I tried the crickets but they did not eat any. I put them in the tray on my gourd rack and even tried throwing some up to them while they were on the perches. They did not try to catch them. I had put some leaves in their gourds when they first arrived to help keep them warm. Too bad I could not get them to eat. The temps Sunday had got into the 60s but we had another cold front and have dipped below freezing the last 2 nights. Sometimes we go a whole winter and not get below freezing. I have lived here my whole life of 47 years and cannot remember a colder winter. It is the saddest thing to see all these Martins dying.

[Louise Chambers]

Randall,

That is a shame, and I know it is awful to lose them - but please keep trying. Keep flipping some crickets for them if they are perched - a plastic spoon can lob a cricket up above their heads so they have lots of opportunity to watch it and think about what that is. Can you get some handwarmers to put into some cavities at night, and block the others, so they have to use the ones with warmers in place?

Keep trying, and let us know how things are going. We're all hoping they will start to take food for you.

Louise

PS, I remember your bird 'Elvis', with the odd feather on his head, from a few years back.

[rehab]

empty

[Scott D.- La]

Randall,
Hate to hear all this is happening to you. We are down in the twenties here in Cenla, but my birds are doing fine. I have fed some crickets over the last couple days however, today was a pretty good feeding day. I would put large amounts of pine straw in your gourds and if you have vents in your gourds, close them off. Like Louise said, make sure you get your crickets as high as possible with a good flipping spoon. The temperatures are supposed to climb daily with a warming trend throughout the week.

[Ben R. Homola]

Randall, even down here in south Florida, we are having trouble. On Sunday my neighbor came over and said there was a dead Martin in front of his house. With that in mind, I took the grouds down and found another dead male. I lookd around the yard and found a heap of feathers and two wings. The birds are so cold and becoming weak that they can't fly away when the hawk comes by. I have lived here for 30 years. I have never seen it this cold for this long. My numbers are going backwards. No new influx of birds in the last two weeks. I am sure everyone heard about are big fish kill in the Gulf a few weeks ago. Water temp. got down to 48 degrees. So you can see it has been very cold this winter down here. I hope it gets warmer soon.
Ben in Fort Myers, FL

[Randall Duhon]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I did not see any Martins come in for the night last night. I am afraid they have all died. We got below freezing again last night. I still have crickets in my tray on my gourd rack just incase.

Louise, thank you for remembering Elvis lol. I miss him. I looked foward to him showing up every year. He was quite succesful lol.

[Barrowdog]

I'm sorry to hear this, please please don't give up with supplemental feeding.

Have better news remaining ones are holding their own.Have been putting big crickets in their gourds. If gets bad cold again will try hand warmers. Thanks to all

[Guest]

I too feed by putting crickets directly in the tunnels.I tried the porches a couple of years ago but they knocked many off.

dick

[Randall Duhon]

Well I have not found any more dead Martins the last couple of days. I still have 3 Martins left that are spending the night. I have been keeping track of how many crickets that I put in my feeding tray and yesterday 10 crickets were missing. I can only hope that the Martins ate them. We were in the 30,s again this morning but are expecting a warm up for the week-end. This winter has been brutal.