Amazing News!

DakotaLady · Sat Apr 30, 2011 5:33 pm

I can not believe this. We are having a severe winter snow storm, winds at 40 to 50 mph, first rain, now snow and cold. This morning I sat by the window and read through the forum feeling a little bummed that I had not seen a purple martin visit my site yet. I was just getting ready to go into town and took one last look out the window when I saw this black bird fly in and land on my wooden house. I am so excited I will not be able to sleep tonight. Since I had to get into town I could not watch to see if he went into the housing or flew off. Oddly enough, last year my male martin came to my place during a snow storm too.

Tomorrow morning I need to traipse through the snow and put food, egg shells and nesting material in my bed and breakfast tray I built them last year.

I am really hoping this year I have more than one pair so that I feel a little more comfortable that they will continue to make the migration this far north.

Now I have to hope like all get out, that he will bring in a pretty female, a few pals and make this their homes. (fingers crossed) This has been a long process getting birds at this location, as after getting my first pair, I believe they must have perished as the next year I did not get any martins. That is why I'm being greedy and wishing for more than one pair.

I hope all of you are enjoying your birds.

mclifton · Sat Apr 30, 2011 6:31 pm

After raining all night last night, and heavily all day today, about 20 Martins showed up. As we are having a flood as well, my husband waded out in chest waders ( the water is way deeper than his waders) to put the thankfully, pre-prepared houses up. We are now (at 6:30 pm) getting high winds, and snow and blowing snow. Highways west of us are closed due to poor visability, snow and blowing snow, and ice. Temperatures tonight and tomorrow night are to go to -6 C (21 F). The poor things are sitting there huddled and puffed up. They are not trained for hand-outs, and we have no access off the property anyway. I'll try prayer. How do they survive?

DakotaLady · Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:29 pm

Mclifton,

It is amazing that they survive such cold, snowy weather. It is nice that 20 martins came back to your site. Although, I suspect you could have waited a few days eh?

I went out to lower my house a little more as the wind is really whipping the house back and forth. As I trudged through the snow out flies a female martin scaring the bejeebers out of me. I called out to her saying 'it's ok baby' she made sharp turn and flew right back into the house.

I'm assuming the male I seen before must have had a female following him. I had to go into town after seeing him so I did not get to see the female come in. She was very nervous keeping herself right by the hole of the house and ready to take flight if necessary.

I am SOOOOOO thrilled. The snow is supposed to stop late this evening and it is supposed to be cold and windy tomorrow and then nice again for a few days. Hopefully, they will be fine and stay put for a couple days.

Thankfully, the season might be starting for me. woo hooooooo

Caroline94535-ND · Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:00 pm

Hi! I'm over in Larimore, ND, and I'm feeling your pain. Not only is the snow blowing, I had 6-8 more PMs come zooming into the gourds as soon as the bad weather started.

I'm glad I haven't cleaned and packed away the heavy boots yet.

DakotaLady · Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:41 pm

Greetings Caroline,

It's nice to hear from another North Dakotan. I hope tonight will be the last of it. How many birds do you have at your colony already this year?

From looking at the 10 day forecast, it is supposed to be really nice the starting Monday. That will give all these poor birds a break.

DakotaLady · Sun May 01, 2011 7:47 am

OMG OMG...OMG, I've been sitting here since 3:30 am as I wanted to see how many birds I had in my martin house. I only had the opportunity to see 1 male yesterday and had to leave the house. They JUST came out now at 7:44 am and there are 5...omg yes 5!!! 3 ASY males and 2 ASY females. Can you believe it? I pray they stay.

It is so cold here, some of the holes on the houses are blown shut with snow.

This is FANTASTIC!!! I have one more rack of gourds I need to raise but it is so windy that I might wait until this afternoon to raise it.

I can not believe it!!! i'm so sorry I'm blathering on like a little kid but this has been LONG in coming. I need to watch what they are doing...back later.

rrmartins · Sun May 01, 2011 7:57 am

How exciting for you. Hopefully they will stay and your season has begun. Good luck.

Gobbler T · Sun May 01, 2011 8:45 am

Congrats! Looks like you may grow a little this year.

DakotaLady · Sun May 01, 2011 10:49 am

Thank you rrmartins and GobblerT. All of the martins went back into my martin house in one compartment on the east side of the house where the sun is shining and keeping them warm. It is still very windy and cold I suspect they will hang out until the wind lets up a little and they can go out feeding.

I have a couple things I would like to do out there yet but don't want to disturb them. So I will wait until they come out and go feeding.

mjneppl · Sun May 01, 2011 2:42 pm

my advice would be to feed them.

here in wisconsin last week--my dad checked on the nieghbors martins after 2 days of cold rain--there were 6 dead martins in one of the gourds.

Laverne · Sun May 01, 2011 3:19 pm

I felt the need to repeat!! Please, feed them!!

We had to feed 11 birds that returned here to Texas in February.

In your first post you mentioned putting out egg shells, food, and nesting material. In my humble opinion, you don't need to worry about anything but "food". Did you leave nesting material inside the cavities for them? If not, then please provide them with two or three cavities of nest material. If you have to, pull some from the other cavities and make it thick enough to provide some insulation for them. They will probably communally nest until the weather warms up. They do this to share body heat with each other. Close the entrances on all other cavities. Put handwarmers into the nest cavity and then provide the birds with crickets.

I hope all your early returning birds survive! Do your best to take care of them and if you have anymore questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Best wishes for a wonderful season!

Sincerely,
Laverne

DakotaLady · Sun May 01, 2011 4:59 pm

mjneppl & Laverne,

I really appreciate all your advice. I do have pine needles in all of my nesting cavities that are currently open and placed food in the entrance of the house compartment and one gourd that they went into as soon as they came out to fly around late this morning. It was so cold I did not want to prematurely bring down their housing until they were ready to come out.

In addition, I put mealworms, egg shells and additional nesting material in the B&B I made. I'm raising mealworms for the martins and bluebirds.

After they flew out they left and I've not seen them yet. I'm hoping they come back this evening so that they can eat up the food I've left them. If there is anything I can do to assist them I definitely am willing. I purchased some hand warmers a few months ago after reading that all of you use them and will place them into the cavity they've been using a little later this evening so that it lasts all night and into the morning when it's so cold.

I guess only time will tell if they will come back or if they were passing through and needed a place to stay.

Thanks again for the assistance.n If you can think of anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to respond.

bbillyc · Sun May 01, 2011 6:07 pm

Rotten weather. Last night I wound up with at least a dozen ASY males and 4 ASY females. They all huddled up at about 6 per unit. Most of them left today and don't know if they'll be coming back. I put food in the units for them and on porches but they didn't eat. The PM's from my colony know where I put the food and gobble it up easily so these must have been still migrating and looking for a spot to lay down for the night. Only 1 ASY male remains and he is in a heated gourde with all the crickets, eggs, mealworms and comfy bedding he could ask for. He should be good. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to improve a wee bit, but the sun will be out after a clear night of sub-zero temperatures. Hopefully the sunlight and blue sky will lighten everyones spirits, melt the snow, get some bugs flying and help our winged buddies survive.

eyeamtheman · Sun May 01, 2011 8:12 pm

Good luck up there y'all....

DakotaLady · Mon May 02, 2011 9:16 pm

No sign of those martins. The crickets were still in the entrances, I placed them in baggies and put them in the freezer again. I hope that is ok? They have not been back since they all crammed in one of the cavities in my wooden house during the blizzard. I am very thankful that I did see some around. Hopefully, they come back eventually.

DakotaLady · Wed May 04, 2011 8:49 pm

We finally had a nice, sunny day. After work I went out and began working in my gardens. Here comes a ASY male martin and sits on one of my new gourd racks. I don't think he is my male from last year as he acts quite a bit differently. As crazy as this sounds my male last year would talk to me when I talked to him. (TRUST me...I really am a sane person even though I talk to animals.)

He was so quiet and sat and watched me for awhile, then left. Then he came back about an hour later sat for about 5 minutes watching and listening to me then left. I hope he keeps coming back and brings a lady friend.

I never did see those 5 martins again...too bad. I would have really babied them.

bbillyc · Thu May 05, 2011 8:53 pm

Absolutely all of the martins that were here during the storm have left. The weather is nice now and some bugs are flying, but I haven't seen a martin since last Sunday. I hope my regular clan which would have arrived by now are just slow and that they were able to get through Minnesota during the storm. But the sad news is there isn't a single PM in my area.