Relief!

[DakotaLady]

I finally have 5 birds spending the night. 3 ASY males and 2 females. I really had hope that I would increase the number of pairs here and I know I still have time for that. But it sure is nice to finally have them back.

Matt Dillon, my very aggressive ASY male did not make it back as far as I can tell unless his temperament changed. When I walk down to my little greenhouse they follow me and sing to me the entire way. I genuinely get the feeling they are happy to see me. Crazy!

I am three birds short of last year right now. How are the rest of you doing in numbers?

[Robbo]

Good news, I bet you get more as the Martin's are still coming in here at my little colony. They are starting to move into the gourds so Iam guessing will be full shortly. Iam guessing but I think around 28 so far. Good luck .

[Trishy]

I had 9 pair last year. So far this year I have 8 pair and 2 asy males still looking. It has been real hard for the males to find females. For several days I had only 4 males paired. It has been only in the last day or so the other females have come in. I had 1 female that always nested in my troyer horizontal gourd. She has not returned. I am feeding crickets often. Last week we had 2-3 days of nice weather, and today I am feeding again. We have strong wind and real cool temps. I think very little nest building has been going on because of the weather. The next nice day we have I am going to check. I don't think that is until Monday or Tuesday. I am so happy that your martins have returned. Mine were very slow in returning, but I am glad they are finally here, and hopefully nest building will get under way shortly. Good luck to you this season.

[DakotaLady]

Robbo,

Glad to hear the martins are still poring into your colony. I sure hope you are right and I increase the number of martin pairs this year. I have 5 spending the night and today had 9 total sitting around. They left after a half hour of snooping in the gourds. I think they must be from another colony just visiting my martins. Would be nice if a few of them like it here and stayed.

Trishy,

I think you are right about the females just beginning to show up. It seems like the past couple days I am seeing more of them visiting or at other colonies.

Mine are not nest building either. Evenings have been very cold and it has been cool and windy during the day as well. It is supposed to start warming up now tomorrow so I am sure I will begin seeing nesting activity as well. Thank you very much for the well wishes. I sure hope you meet and exceed the number of birds you had last year also. Good luck to you as well. Keep me posted on how many birds you ended up with.

Happy birding.

[DebA]

Wonderful! There you go!
Deb

[MamaBruff]

Hey That's great! Poor birds had to wait for a break in the weather! :-)

[ehuszar]

I had 5 active pairs last year around this time and this year I only have one! I'm somewhat concerned they did not make it during the winter but I keep hearing on this board that it is a slow migration. I can confirm from last year that it has been a very cold spring, so im just hopefully everything is 2 to 3 weeks behind schedule in terms of my martins making it home.


What are other landlords observing, late arrivals? or no arrivals at all?

[april57]

yes it seems to be slow but I have 8 martins now. Maybe 10 today hard to tell they keep jumping condo apartments. Typical females cant make their minds up. Or it could be the male. But still we have some and they are really enjoying our warm northern climate right now.

[DakotaLady]

Deb, it is wonderful to have them back. Their sounds and antics are entertaining and I'm wasting quite a bit of my time sitting and watching them.

MamaB, What a strange year eh? Hard to believe they were so slow in getting to our state this year. I went through the past dates and this was the latest that a report was made.

Ehuszar, They were definitely late in arriving this year. But I am way up North in ND. I see you are down south and should have your birds already. I think there were quite a few deaths this spring from all the cold, rainy weather. I hope yours come back. Good luck.

April, I had 4 pair last year and this year I have 5 to 6 birds spending the night. I sure hope that number increases. The subbies are not here yet and I hope I get a few of them too. I really want to increase my colony so that I don't have to worry so much in the spring. ha ha. Glad you are seeing a lot of birds around.

April - I saw in another post you stated you left your martin houses open late into the year and had a lot of migrating birds visit yours. I leave mine up until early October and never see migrating birds around after mine leave. I don't think I am on a flyway and there does not seem to be many martins around this area. You must be on a migratory flyway?

Good luck everyone...may your martin houses fill up this year.

[ehuszar]

DakotaLady, thanks I hope they make it as well, it does seem odd but hopefully they are just taking there sweat time to make it back! I'm glad your doing so well but it seems that lots of PM landlords are not seeing the birds until 2 to 3 weeks latter if they ever see them. So at this point just glad i have my one male and female staying everynight and one ASY male that is looking for a female. As i have also seen the females are talking there time to head back north!

cross those fingers and we will see!