Using foster parents to expand the purple martins range.

[Chris Brown]

This is an idea I came up with and wanted to see what people think and if it has ever been tried. Ok we are going to have at assume that all the nesasary permits are in place. Step one establish a tree swallow grid with single compartment Martin houses or girds. Step two take the tree swallow eggs from four nests and distribute them through the rest of the grid before incubation starts. Step two replace the eggs with unincubated Martin eggs. So now if the tree swallows succeed at the longer incubation period and fledging period. With three eggs per nest they would in thery fledge 12 young. With a winter servival rate of 33% 4 sy birds should return. With at least one male and female. Leaves lots of interesting questions would they migrate to Brazil with martins or would they migrate the same as tree swallows. Would they be programmed to return to the site they fledged from? Does anyone know of this being attempted. Is there a sientific reason to attempt the permits and try this. What do people think. Finally I have no intention of trying this and would remind everyone that it would be highly ilegal.

[~Ray~Gingerich]

I think I read somewhere it's been done but ended in failure because of the longer time periods involved and the nests were abandoned.

[Louise Chambers]

Ray is correct - the differing nestling periods are not compatible - martin young are in the nest at least 26 days after hatch, and Tree Swallows do not recognize that as normal for healthy young.

As one year olds, martins will return to the general area, but not necessarily to the same location. A small percentage return to their natal sites, most end up 10-50 miles away, some further than that.

In Pennsylvania, a permitted project took nestling martins from nests, and they were put in enclosures on a building roof, and fed by human volunteers - hoping they would return next year to that location. Didn't work - return rates for nestlings that fledged without post-fledge care from parents was not high enough for the project to succeed.

[barry resvick]

This might just work with barn swallows as their incubation as well as their time in the nest is very close to martins.

[Louise Chambers]

It was tried and also failed. The best way to bring martins back to an area is to find nearest colonies and make sure they are well-managed, then there will be some spread as more martins return each spring.