Heat -- trying some last-ditch measures

[John Miller]

Have three nests of about 15 day olds left to fledge. Temps supposed to be 107 today and 105 tomorrow and Sat before a cool down.

Two left to fledge are in a Coates House on the north side, and have been out on porch last evening and this morning. They have some shade from the porch above them, but I added a little "awning " to the porch above with folded paper plates stuffed under the railing and secured with duct tape.

Two natural gourds below a Trendsetter still have clutches of 15 day olds. I stapled white cloths around the gourds and plan to try to wet the cloths this afternoon, as someone here suggested. One gourd is up under the house enough that I decided to just to pull the PVC elbo vent out -- house above it -- to try to vent more.

There's a guy in St. Louis, Randy something, who often makes the news going around rescuing stray dogs. His family and friends think he's nuts -- I think even tried an "intervention" one time. If anyone wants to come intervene and buy me a beer - ha. Hopefully won't see this kind of weather again for a few seasons.

John M

[adrianhans]

Hey John,
I can empathize with you. Unfortunately for you, the high pressure zone that is causing the inferno for you moved from here last week. It got to be 105-6 on our shaded porch. We only have one nest left waiting to fledge. It really hurts one's lungs to breathe. I don't see how the martins can even perch on the metal parts of the system...the soles of my crocs got mushy standing on cement. I went out on occasion and simply used the hose and sprayer to shower the system. The male martin sat in the spray and did not move, soaking in the cool. The good news is that we never had a jumper and all seemed to survive in good spirits.
Hope the weather breaks for you soon.
Hang in there.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Adrian, I still think that food is more important than heat prevention. It has always been true that when you have a lots of jumpers, they are very poor. It surely helps to have housing cool, but a very poor baby is less able to survive in a heat wave due to the additional stress. I have never found a real fat jumper during hot weather.

[John Miller]

Emil

I tending to agree about the role of food -- probably keeps them hydrated too. Sometimes some that die may be from a combination of heat and reduced feeding. Some that surprise us and surive may be cases where the parent birds feed more. but shade..shade...surely helps.
John

[Dale D]

John, I still have 4 late nests to fledge here in Florida. I have been having good success by placing a ocillating sprinkler on top of a 6 foot step ladder between the houses and running it in the hot afternoons to help cool the houses. Seems to be working.

[Mike in NC]

Some interesting thoughts in this thread regarding the effects of heat versus available food. I noticed that the parents at my housing stopped feeding when the temps got up over 103 to 104 - but we were fortunate that only occurred for a few hours each day and there is plenty of food here, so the babies stayed relatively fat and happy.

Regarding the interior temperature of the nest cavity (gourd or housing), I would think that a rather small cooling effect is needed to get the temperatures to a more tolerable level. If the young can tolerate 100 degrees, then misting or spraying should be more than adequate even on the hottest days.

I set up a sprinkler under my housing to spray upward over the gourds while it was hot here and it seemed to be very effective in cooling the area. I wish I had put some of my remote barbeque thermometers in the gourds and then in a control area to measure the temperature difference. Oh, well. Next time...