missing babies

Bob Fraser · Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:19 pm

Did a nest check yesterday afternoon. Everything seemed normal with the exception of a single gourd which 4 days earlier had 5 babies. That gourd was empty. As of yesterday, the babies would have been about a week old.

All the other gourds had the right number of babies and everything seems fine with them.

The male and female martin whose babies they were are acting normal and continue to go in and out of the gourd as before.

I just have no idea what could have happened to those babies.

Any ideas?

tonyg · Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:29 pm

If you have any Sy's as part of your colony then that is what probably happened to your babies. It has happened to me 3 times this year. Twice with eggs missing and once with 4 babies missing out of 6 in the nest. They can be very cruel sometimes.

Bob Fraser · Fri Jun 08, 2012 7:39 pm

I wondered if that could be it. No blood or anything. Nothing on the ground. I wonder what they do with them? ....

It was a BO-11 gourd with tunnel and the babies were all the way in the back, so unlikely anything could have reached in there and got them.

Thanks Tony..

~Ray~Gingerich · Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:23 am

Same thing is happening here, I have a criminal Sy on the loose, 5 so far

tonyg · Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:33 am

Usually they are small enough and they just pick them up and carry them out and drop them on the ground some where, eggs also. They try to break up the male and female pair in the gourd so he can mate with the female or take over the gourd. Really hard to understand this behavior with them.

parkerdes · Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:16 pm

I wish we could do something about the SY predation but I don't think there is anything we can do even watching our sites 24/7!!! Not going to happen here!
I lost my only SY pair's 1 day old hatchlings in my modified castle...2 gone...3 dead! I also lost 3 of 6 ASY's pair of week old hatchlings in a gourd a few days later.
Just the other day I went ahead & checked on a later nest in the modified castle that should have had 5 babies in it & it was down to 3! I still have a lot of single SY males hanging around & I ended up with a pair of late nesting SYs(could have been the SY pair that lost their brood) in a gourd as well as a late ASY pair that both have 5 nestlings each. It will be interesting to see if they all make it to fledging or if the SYs will do something to them also!
I wonder if next year when the SYs come back as ASYs...if they will be more dilligent in defending their nests??? Maybe..."what goes around comes around!"

Emil Pampell-Tx · Sat Jun 09, 2012 3:59 pm

I suppose that you have a snake guard. This sounds like it could be a subbie male.

Laverne · Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:21 pm

I lost 10 or 12 to Subbie Males this year, also. I did a quick count one day of obvious SY Males and spotted seven sitting on the racks all at one time. So, there were probably several more. I think this is my problem this year. We don't normally have this many Subbie Males hanging around.

What I'm trying to say is I believe this is an unusual year for infanticide. I just don't recall "everybody" having an incident to report that looks like and sounds like infanticide. Frequently, we will blame the event on Starlings or Sparrows; and these birds do destroy PM eggs and babies.

I have seen a single young taken from a nest, carried out into the field and dropped; much like a poop sac. When I saw that, my first thought was "Oh no, the little male has mistaken the hatchling for an egg shell!" I could not believe what I was seeing!!

I found 3 young (day old hatchlings) beneath the gourds this year. 2 were still alive and I replaced them. Later the same day, I found 1 on the ground again; I replaced him (again). Those 2 fledged earlier this week. I believe once the young are too big to be carried away easily, they are no longer bothered. Hope that makes you feel better. This has just been an unusual year and I believe there will be better seasons in the future for all of us. Including those Subbie Males...