Why provide heat for martins?/A rehabber's perspective

[Louise Chambers]

This is posted as a sticky, but since it's such timely reading, I am reposting it here: (thanks Penny)

A Rehabber's Perspective for martin survival

This information was provided by Penny Halstead,
a Sub-permitted Avian Rehabber for Rogers Wildlife outside of Dallas.


I’ve been reading the posts made on the PMCA regarding Martins dying from the cold and lack of food. My hope is to help those of you who might be going thru this or could experience it in the future. It is very important to understand that birds are affected by the cold differently than other species of animals. This also holds true for baby birds as well as adults and also if their sick or injured. Birds do not have fat reserves to draw from when going without food. They draw any extra energy they need from muscle, mainly the breast. This can create several problems because a Martin’s temperature is between 106 and 112, depending on activity. They draw a lot of energy from this muscle to not only to maintain this temperature, but to keep their organs warm and functioning. If they are unable to feed they draw more and more from these muscles and thus the amount of muscle they have starts to decline. This in turn reduces their ability to maintain flight to be able to hunt for food. After just a couple of days their breast muscle can waste away to nothing and then the organs begin to shut down. When they can’t hunt, they can’t keep warm. If they can’t keep warm, then they can’t metabolize food. If they can’t metabolize food, they can’t keep warm……… As you can see it becomes a vicious cycle. Also, when birds are sick or injured and can’t maintain their body temperature and this can also affect their ability to metabolize food and if they’re cold they don’t want to eat. If everyone can do their best to provide any type of heat source (light bulbs, heat lamps, reptile warmers, hand warmers, etc) during this cold weather, the less the birds will have to draw on muscle reserves to keep warm and provide any type of food (crickets, mealworms, eggs, etc.) that they will eat will greatly increase their chances of survival. Please keep in mind that the type of nesting material that you currently have in your housing could be a potential fire hazard when using a light bulb, heat lamp or reptile warmer, if it should come into contact with the heat source. Hand warmers don’t pose such a risk.


The Martins have become so conditioned to having housing available where they know that they can nest and reproduce, that they need a little help when Mother Nature turns on them.

Just an added note. If anyone is keeping domestic fowl, you might also consider giving them a heat source in their housing as well. During freezing weather the skin covering the combs & wattles could be damaged by frost bite (just like human skin), it will turn black and die off.

I would also like to add that everyone needs to remember that Martins don't develop the heavy underdown to insulate them like other wild birds have to endure constant cold weater.

[Scully]

Not meaning to pick nits here, just trying to be technically accurate.

As far as I know, birds, especially songbirds, DO lay on abundant fat, very rapidly, in fact could not migrate at all without it. These stores are drawn down equally rapidly during periods of fasting, which is why even a previously well-fed martin can be near-death after just a three day fast.

Metabolism of muscle tissue occurs rapidly only after all the last fat reserves are gone, said metabolism of muscle being disastrous for the songbird as even birds cannot regenerate muscle tissue rapidly (humans cant either, which is why Charles Atlas's claim "In just seven days I can make you a man" is impossible.

Doesn't have to be ALL the flight muscles, just some of it can seriously inhibit the bird's power of flight, especially critical in birds like martins.

Scott Weidensaul in his classic "Living on the Wind" relates the annual occurrence of a few spring migrants caught in bad weather just barely making landfall on islands off the Louisiana Coast, and then being effectively confined there for weeks, too weakened by the metabolism of their own flight muscles en route to proceed. Whereas birds arriving with flight muscles intact can practically double their body weight with fat in just a few days of good feeding.


The part I have the most problems with is the "martins being conditioned": How the Eastern martin subspecies differes from the other two is that it preferentially looks for cavities in close proximity to humans, period.

If they really WERE "accustomed to having housing available where they know that they can nest and reproduce", there would be no reason for part of the population to return so suicidally early at all, as some martins do EVERY year.

In most cases too I would guess these cavites (wood, plastic or aluminum) are condiderably LESS well insulated than the ancestral cavities in dead trees. So if anything, Eastern martins have been enduring additional cold and more heat than their relatives still in tree holes.

Writing of these birds in anthropomorphic terms does nothing to enhance our understanding of the species.

Likewise, I am not sure we are doing the species any favors by propagating otherwise fatal behaviors.

Actually I'm fixing to run out for crickets even as I type. The only consolation being the two or three I martins I have in mind are an insignificant part of the whole population, and have likely already raised four or five broods anyway.

If we could keep them ALL alive, it would be a catastrophe for the species as a whole. Death in all its forms is the very force that has shaped them into the species they are today.

Just my $0.02

Mike Scully

[Sparky]

All great info. Personally, I don't believe going to the extent of using heating sources for the martins. I let nature go the course. I applaude those that do. I will supplemental feed as possible. I had a scout do a fly by on Monday. I wonder where the bird is now? Alive? I'll never know. I ask myself if they are in the wild during these cold spells, which they are. How are they keeping warm clenched to a tree branch?

[rehab]

empty

[Scully]

For another thing, it sounds like you have concluded we should
do nothing to help or attempt to save the martins because they
are stupid enough to come early. I strongly disagree! I also
do not believe in cruelty to animals.

Alice,

Cruelty has nothing to do with it. Neither does stupidity on the martins' part.

In songbirds the timing of migration is pretty much genetically inherited, around here most martins get back in early March, if Nebraska martins for example all did that the whole population would perish in one fell swoop. The reason most of them do not is that they are descendants of ones that get back in late April or whenever and survived.

Nature has a built-in insurance policy based upon variation, most get back at about the right time, a few get back too early (in most years these are doomed), a few get back too late and raise fewer or no young.

What you end up with is a balanced equilibirium regulated by the death of martins. The same holds true for EVERY MIGRATORY BIRD SPECIES .

In our immediate area, based upon the three I saw at our school today, I can confidently estimate that about 30 purple martins will die this week (we have about 10% of the local population). Around the city at large, several thousand Cave Swallows will be dying too. After several mild winters, more and more of their population had been overwintering every year.

Likewise, this past month, while doing a bird count for the Park Service, I found an Ovenbird and a Chestnut-sided Warbler. Most of both these insect-eating species are in Central America right now, these ones inherited different instructions and had somehow eked out a living in our mild winter. I'm pretty sure both those birds will die this week.

The result is a mechanism that allows birds to adapt to changing climates. 160 years ago South Texas had blizzards cold enough to kill horses overnight where they stood, that would be unheard of today. But if the climate DOES turn colder again, those few late martins nature builds in every year will survive to propagate the species.

Feed 'em all and the equilibrium shifts earlier so that most survive earlier. A few of their descendants will get back even earlier yet and THOSE will die too if we dont feed them.

The good news is that those of us who feed martins are too few to matter to the population as a whole. It gives me no joy at all to watch martins die, in fact the whole class was just outside flipping crickets at three weakened birds to no avail.

But neither is the death of a few martins necessarily a tragedy.

Mike Scully

[rehab]

empty

[Doug Martin - PA]

Mike,

According to your logic an unseasonable late cold snap in any region would doom all those birds of that species that were “dumb” enough to be there at that time. So if there is a cold weather pattern in July for instance in Pennsylvania that wipes out the population, well… that is quite natural and will kill those not smart enough to avoid it. Only the strong survive.

You are forgetting in this equation of comparing other species of birds (EVERY MIGRATORY BIRD SPECIES) that there is only one species that has such a bond with man. There is only one species that relies entirely on man to successfully breed in its region. It is this bond that creates the individuals that put their time and attention into harboring this species and contributing to this forum on their behalf.

If I live on a highway and father 6 children, those that are not smart enough to see the dangers of automobiles traveling past at a high rate of speed will perish by crawling or walking out into the roadway. Perhaps only the smart ones should survive. Correct? Their instinct to run and explore would be their doom. Putting up a fence may only be propagating otherwise fatal behaviors.

Martins have an instinct to return faithfully to their breeding grounds each season. Weather is their worst enemy perhaps. Their strong instincts to return and reestablish that man-made territory is also what makes them so special. That does not make them “stupid”.

You have replied to a post that may help some individuals better care for their early returning birds by ‘picking nits” as you say to the validity of the author’s accuracy. We all appreciate your many fine posts on this forum and I commend you for that.

I just don’t think this was one of your better posts.

Maybe we should all take down their housing and let them return to the days of finding their own natural woodpecker hole if we truly want to preserve the species as it was intended. There would only be few left, but they would be awful “smart and tough”.

[Scully]

According to your logic an unseasonable late cold snap in any region would doom all those birds of that species that were “dumb” enough to be there at that time. So if there is a cold weather pattern in July for instance in Pennsylvania that wipes out the population, well… that is quite natural and will kill those not smart enough to avoid it. Only the strong survive.

I never mentioned "dumb" or "smart", in this context those are entirely human constructs. The timing of return has nothig to do with a concious descision on the part of the martins. Late cold snaps have been happening in Pennsylvania since the beginning of time, purple martins in the north have been noted for their mass die-offs as long as people have been keeping records.

The PMCA, being where they are located, MUST feed theirs or else they would periodically lose their entire research colony. The fate of the many offspring of this colony produces in bad years is unknown. Left to their own hook, martins would eventually return after a period of mild years, provided people still supplied housing.

martins aren't the only species to respond this way, I can guarantee you that, with this harsh winter, several million Carolina Wrens are perishing all across the Northern State, this species beng about as notorious as martins for mass die-offs.

You are forgetting in this equation of comparing other species of birds (EVERY MIGRATORY BIRD SPECIES) that there is only one species that has such a bond with man. There is only one species that relies entirely on man to successfully breed in its region. It is this bond that creates the individuals that put their time and attention into harboring this species and contributing to this forum on their behalf.

Then why help those individuals exibiting fatal traits?

If I live on a highway and father 6 children, those that are not smart enough to see the dangers of automobiles traveling past at a high rate of speed will perish by crawling or walking out into the roadway. Perhaps only the smart ones should survive. Correct? Their instinct to run and explore would be their doom. Putting up a fence may only be propagating otherwise fatal behaviors.

No, children can learn, individual martins cannot LEARN when to return. They inherit the trait. The nearest human analogy would be those who choose not to bear their own children because they carry a fatal genetic disorder.

Martins have an instinct to return faithfully to their breeding grounds each season. Weather is their worst enemy perhaps. Their strong instincts to return ands reestablish that man-made territory is also what makes them so special. That does not make them “stupid”.

Where did I use the word "stupid", anywhere?

"Instinct" is by definition genetic, that is a trait inherited from the parents. So is the timing of their return.

Maybe we should all take down their housing and let them return to the days of finding their own natural woodpecker hole if we truly want to preserve the species as it was intended. There would only be few left, but they would be awful “smart and tough”.

'twould be a shame to lose this unique legacy handed down to us by the original inhabitants of this land. Plus this is about the only wildsongbird that is so practically and legally subject to manipulation and study by students.

Heck, I have been among the more vocal here in KEEPING housing up, those infested by S&S, as almost all martin-occuppied housing across broad swathes of the martins' range almost certainly are.

Propagating fatal behaviors however, is no way to preserve a legacy.

You should note that there is no record of Native Americans EVER using supplemental feeding, and yet that contingent of the martin population thrived.

You should also note that I have not told anyone NOT to feed, that is a personal descision. I have added another viewpoint is all.

Mike Scully

[John Miller]

Mike

this annual debate...I'm still not convinced of your position that martins that survive early arrival will pass genes on to their off spring to return early as well. I have more questions than conclusions.

I thought those that return early simply tended to be three or four years old, but I'm not convinced of this either and would like to see more studies.

We do know that martins have been returning early and perishing for at least a hundred or more years, based on a lot of old birding observations.

I used to wonder if martin offspring maybe pushed further north each year to expand their range. Then a few issues ago, the PM Update magazine noted an ASY banded male in Louisiana that was fledged in New Jersey. How does that add up? This New Jersey martin didn't seem to have the right genes? But are not all martins in the east the same genes?


I also to ponder if return dates are based on fledge dates; that maybe martins return after x months of resting from rearing their young. Louise Chambers says it's after moulting, but wouldn't moulting be tied into the whole cycle?

There was one concern I observed about keeping the early arrivals alive last year. A group of mine that arrived early all settled in one house (I manage multiple houses) late last March and I fed them; then April was glorious and warm and they all got started nesting early, with many eggs going unhatched in early May when it turned rainy and cool and some did not seem to renest. Martins that arrived later and layed in late May seemed to fair better. So made me wonder if that Mike Scully was right, in sort of a back door way. But...in mid April 2007, a week-long brutal cold spell wiped out many ASY martins in Missouri...so maybe they should delay from late March to late April? Too many variables, especially weather swings well into May some years, for me to conclude that I'm affecting their arrival date genetic code...even if I had the ability to feed all of Missouri martins.

So I'm gonna feed again this year; just can't help myself. Got a Carolina Wren I'm stoking now on crushed peanuts too!

John M

[Doug Martin - PA]

John Ray's - A collection of English proverbs 1670, 1678: Is known for it's famous one line quote.

"The early bird gets the worm."

I guess the "early bird" described was not a Martin by it's origin. For they would get only death for being so early.

Unless.... John Ray was able to see into the future and much like Nostradamus was able to predict that man would someday flip or feed mealworms for early returning Purple Martins. Thus it is quite true.

So you see the early bird does get the mealworm after all.

I guess it's all in how you choose to perceive things.

[Linda Reynolds]

Mike, In theory, I do not disagree with most of what you have posted. However, I think you are speaking to the wrong audience.

Most of us here on this site, and other forums, are simple backyard landlords, trying to do the best we can for *our* martins and *our* colonies. We are not ornithologists, nor members of government groups that study overall bird migration and species numbers. One or two or fifteen birds are not important in the BIG picture, but one or two birds are always important to the backyard landlord that hosts them. Those one or two martins might even constitute their entire colony. Those one or two birds ARE important to someone.

The author of this information is Penny Halstead. She is affiliated with Roger's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center located in the Dallas area. http://www.rogerswildlife.org/dev/index-b.html Penny is not an *official* backyard landlord, but is an advocate of martins and those landlords that host them. She and Roger's Wildlife have hosted and saved many starving and injured martins. Those in the Dallas area are sure happy to have them available. Penny shared this information, and Alice made sure it was posted on the PMCA Forum because it IS important information for backyard landlords to understand.

You seem to be addressing the BIG picture of things, and much of which you post is true, however, I think you might be over-addressing this group, and questioning practices that many backyard landlords use. Paul and I have personally used hand warmers during cold weather when we have had early arrivals. We also provide supplemental feeding and are so very grateful that our martins use a platform feeder for their needs. They not only accept flung crickets, but readily accept scrambled eggs, meal worms and crickets from the platform feeder. I KNOW the practices we use in our yard have saved many martins. I have tried to share our information with many, and hope the backyard landlord that wants to travel the extra mile has learned something by the shared information on this forum.

As you stated, feeding, or providing heat source will not impact the species as a whole, however, those practice might save a backyard colony, or the birds that are the seeds of that colony site.

Raining on a parade is not fun when you are questioned, but I have to question your motivation. Is it to educate us about the larger picture of things, or is it to thwart efforts made by many that care? What is the purpose of talking about the species when folks are simply trying to help a few martins that call their backyard home? You already stated a few martins will not impact the species as a whole. So what is the problem with a few backyard landlords offering assistance as they see fit???

Now, if what I am doing, or others are trying to do impacts the entire species, AND will cause harm, I will pay more attention........So far, I do not see evidence of that happening, so will continue to provide warmth AND food to our earliest arrivals, and hope others will do the same.

[James Rieman]

Hi all,
Personally, I think this has been a great thread and really appreciate all of the opinions here. I especially liked Mike Scully's well reasoned point of view. I think some of the emotional responses and strawman arguments against what Mike was trying to say were unfair. I think this forum is at its best when opposing viewpoints can be put forth without people getting their feelings hurt just because somebody else has a different point of view. I appreciate your opinions and your approach to martins Mike and I think that it is important to realize that these are not "our" birds but wild animals that are still subjected to the perils of nature and natural selection.

James D Rieman
Houston Texas
PMCA member

[Scully]

Then a few issues ago, the PM Update magazine noted an ASY banded male in Louisiana that was fledged in New Jersey. How does that add up? This New Jersey martin didn't seem to have the right genes? But are not all martins in the east the same genes?

John,

On the genetic basis of songbird migration and its simple inheritability I am on quite solid Ornithological footing. I could quote studies and have done so before (and would again upon request)

You will also note that the New Jersey martin found in Louisiana was notable as an exception, in the same way that an older martin found breeding in Ontario turned out to be from a colony in Dallas.

I never said that genes were uniform in any given population, just the opposite in fact, hence the vast majority of the perhaps hundreds of martin banding returns are local, as were both of ours back when we were banding. The "outliers"; that expendable minority that constitutes nature's adaptation/insurance policy, can turn up anywhere, anytime.

Single Purple Martins can and have turned up in such disparate places as Europe, Greenland, and the Galapogos.

Work a fishing boat off the Coast of California in fall, and you'll be beset by a constant trickle of misguided songbirds of many species migrating West instead of South. They'll rest on the boat for a bit, and then bravely head on out over the vast Pacific to certain doom, victims of their genes.
To bird watchers these vagrants" are termed exactly that, and many years set off a stampede to see some out-of-range bird. For every New Jersey martin recovered in Louisiana, my money says that there's at least as many ended up in Labrador, or somewhere over the Atlantic, or maybe Nebraska.

Mike Scully

[Laverne]

Thanks Scully,

I've always enjoyed your educated point of view. Honestly, you and others like you with your degrees and proper ways to speak of birds and other critters have taught me a lot. I get it, I understand what you are saying. However, I still "enjoy" talking about my birds like they are my babies.

... and I ain't alone ...

Fergit it guys - most of us here "want" to see the world through rose colored glasses.

[John Miller]

Laverne, Mike

I'm not a scientist, but I'm not wanting to see martins through rose colored glasses either. I want to understand.

Albeit I'm a little dense, but I have not seen -- and Mike might say have not understood --the evidence that supplemental feeding is going to cause martins to pass on "too early" genes. The studies I recall seem to be about birds that have very different characteristics from martins.

I'm also blocked from understanding, perhaps, by the very fact that martins are so specialized that they are very susceptible to weather kills. But it's not the early spring cold spells that can wipe out regional populations. It's the late spring and early summer weather events -- especially multiple rainy days -- that can kill them by the bucketfulls, and if martins came later and avoided these weather events, it would be too hot to nest in many areas.

There are breeding bird surveys showing declines of the population by 90 percent in Michigan, 75 percent in Wisconsin and so on in nothern states, and not because of supplemental feeding. If landlords in those areas of decline add supplemental feeding to their list of management strategies, seems to me the worst that can happen -- or hope for -- is returning to population levels of previous decades.

John M

[jldoll]

Thanks for all your comments, Very interesting But"

Here in the USA there are very few species that have not been affected by people, weather they are a introduced species or natural to our habitat.
Weather we like some species or not they are part of the wildlife I enjoy so much.

As far as interfering with the natural order of nature, Thank god there are people that do. The DNR is the most successful government agency that ever exisisted. Next are so many people and programs like state parks bird sanctuary's, land that is donated. organizations like PMCA, And the list gos on.

The birds that were near extinction in the USA, The ones we would not have.
Eagles for one and most birds of prey for the smallest pigmy owl to the great horned owl, like them or not most are here because of human intervention
We are still trying to teach the whooping crane how to migrate, and where to go. The list of birds goes on and on.

Thanks to the DNR and other organizations we can enjoy Deer, bear, roccoon, coyote, wolf, wolverine, fisher, beaver, otter, porcupine, and others, Many have been reintroduced or brought back from the brink of extinction.

I guess we are to late to worry about interfering with mother nature, This has been done for hundreds of years.

Most of us participate in some sort of conservation effort, in one degree or another so why should we expect others to adhere to our particular method.

So I say, if you enjoy it in your back yard, go for it. And if you can help any species you feel strongly about please do, they all need it.

One of the birds that give me the most pleasure is the purple martin and I will continue to do what ever I can to help and protect this species.
Isn't that we are trying to do.

Jerry

[Scully]

John,

In previous years I talked about how some German blackcap warblers are now migrating northwest in fall to English bird feeders rather than south to Africa as most still do, and how the direction of migration was determined when crossbreeding the two populations to be a product of simple genetic inheritance. From my perspective both blackcaps and martins are insect eating passerines that migrate to the tropics. Some folks may feel they are still quite different.

Here at home the closest we have is a large cliff swallow colony in Nebraska, most of which was wiped out by a late freeze in 1996, the few late arrivals that year being the swallows that survived to breed. For several years afterwards, most cliff swallows in the area arrived later than before the freeze event, the conclusion being that they were descended from those few late arrivals in 1996.

Pertaining to martins you correctly point out that early spring freezes kill only a small minority of the population. I would point out that the only reason just a few martins die is precisely because most of them haven't moved up from the Tropics yet. I would also point out that "early spring" is relative; Texas martins are already feeding young when the first martins hazard their lives up in Saskatchewan.

As to occasional late cold snaps taking most of the population in a given area, yes indeed, but these cold snaps are less likely later in the season. As you point out, the confining factor for late arrivals however being that late summer heat.

Once again what results is a delicate equilibrium between death and survival, upset periodically by unusual weather events and then reestablishing itself over time.

As for artificial feeding, too few folks will probably ever do it to really matter to the martin population as a whole, and has been pointed out, may keep individual colonies alive for people's enjoyment. The worst I suppose that can happen is that the offpsring of these artificially fed colonies will die in their turn at some other colony the next time a cold snap hits.

OTOH, if one is in an area where one has to artificially feed martins most years to manitain a colony, the reason why martin populations may have declined in that same area ought to be no mystery.


Mike Scully

[Scully]

The birds that were near extinction in the USA, The ones we would not have.
Eagles for one and most birds of prey for the smallest pigmy owl to the great horned owl, like them or not most are here because of human intervention

To be technically correct most species that have been saved were done so by the STOPPING of human intervention, eliminating pesticides and preventing persecution in the case of the bald eagle. Likewise when areas are set aside, they are generally allowed to revert to the condition they were BEFORE human intervention.

Even the in case of schooling whooping cranes to migrate, important to note the goal was to create a SELF-SUSTAINING population, reproducing what existed before the cranes were all shot out.

The cases of continual artificial feeding I know of all pertain to game species, where the goal is to maintain huntable populations in areas where human activity has altered the environment to the point that huntable populations would not naturally exist.

At it extreme this takes the form of "put and take" fishing, the stocking of fish that CANNOT reproduce where they are stocked, these fish put there solely to offer sport for anglers. The extreme of THAT being the stocking of rainbow trout in certain rivers each winter in Texas, with the sure knowledge that any trout not caught by spring will certainly perish as the summer heat returns.

Similar programs exist in other states.

How this relates to the feeding of martins... I suppose I should "get a grip".... compared to say, the situation in the Middle East, feeding martins crickets seems a paltry concern.

Mike Scully

[Doug Martin - PA]

I thought a little bit about this the past few days

Mike is well educated in this matter and I certainly don't mean to step on toes or be stupid myself. I do wonder about it. The topic deserves debate.

This area I am in Western PA is very big in supplemental feeding. This includes most all the local colonies. Mainly since the year 2002 I believe. Since that time the population has drastically increased to the point that even I now have a small colony after trying for 28 years. My story is in the last update. Also you will see in the update that Pa is second to only Texas in numbers fledged. So our numbers are very strong. (at least what is reported)

I looked back at the arrival times since 1997 and I see no effect this has had in the early reporting dates for this area that always feeds. There are still some years that are early some later regardless. Add in the fact that age is the primary reason that Martins come earlier (older ones first) and I wonder if there is any negative impact long term from feeding.

Around here we all have bed & breakfasts at our sites. Most all eat scrambled egg off platforms at the nearby colonies. I am convinced without it the population would still be low. Instead not only were a few thousand young fledged from these colonies, I too sent 47 young into the world as well. The last thing I am worried about is them showing up too early because they were fed.

I do wonder about the "only the strong survive" theory and the impact it could have.

I still have not seen nor heard of a negative affect from feeding. Keeping every possible bird alive has only led to a population boom.

I am sure if you do not feed in the south it would have little impact on the overall population. Up here in the north in a state with the fewest sunny days in the country it has had a tremendous impact on the population.

Edit: Note that prior to 1972 this region had a large population of Martins. Hurricane Agnes was responsible for nearly wiping out the population here. 5 solid days of heavy rain. It still has never recovered fully. Could that too have been avoided by supplemental feeding? Or what good was derived for the species from it. They still die from cold weather, it did not make them stronger as a species or return later as a result.


Also mentioned earlier was that Martins may not be able to learn to avoid fatal weather or when to arrive. But they have learned to accept supplemental feeding in order to survive. They then return quickly to their natural feeding of insects once available and strongly prefer it. They will not supplemental feed unless it it required to survive.

This is a very dynamamic and revolutionary adaptation of a species that once only had a diet of flying insects. Perhaps it may even be the key necessary for their survival should there be a severe change in the weather pattern globally or regionally. This includes heat, drought, cold or rain.

Should this occur I think we will still have Martins in Western PA that will survive.. Will your region?

Doug

[Scully]

This topic now has its own thread beginning with Doug's last post.

If we all reply on that other one it will be easier to follow.