Fledging at Key site

[H Key]

My founding pairs 3 young left their gourd today. Two of them was this morning within 1 hour of each other. Both times the entire colony was flying about them and hollering, even hitting them on their back a few times. Landed on garage roof and on old shed roof. This evening about 7:45 my wife noticed one on the ground under the gourd. I turned my telescope to it and it was a baby with the other birds circling overhead then one landed beside it. Seemed to be encouraging it to fly, and after a second it took off with the rest chasing and hollering. It finally landed in a large hackberry tree on the south end of our house. The adults were trying to coax it out but nothing doing, so I suppose this little fellow will spend his first night of freedom "up a tree". Maybe it will be ok but won't know until tomorrow. Didn't realize the others would harass the fledgling like they did and I have 37 others to go. Hubert

[DebA]

Yesterday I had two take off from a gourd. I don't think it was their first flight because they took off strong. Immediately the other martins chattered and went towards it. In an encouraging way. I did see a back bump. I wonder if that is a method of training of some sort. Like when my drivers ed teacher a hundred years ago took his huge basketball coach foot over the console and stepped on the gas too so I would know how to react. Incidentally, grinning and flying down the hiway at a high rate of speed is not what he was looking for.

Deb