Our two personal purple martin colonies, mine and my neighbor Bobs’ site, are doing very well and more martins continue to arrive every day it seems. I believe I have between 200 and 250 pairs of martins in residence right now and the numbers continue to increase as more ASY and now SY martins arrive. Bob probably has around 150 pairs. There is all of April and most of May to attract more martins.
We started off this season with many fewer martins and the late February and early March terrible weather did adversely impact many martins in northwest Louisiana. The martin migration was slow but has now picked up considerably. I am not sure if we will match the martin numbers we had last year but things have greatly improved and so there is a good chance we will. We usually attract between 500 and 600 pairs of martins each season to our two personal colonies.
For 2015 I have 404 cavities: 324 plastic gourds and 80 Trendsetter compartments. I am using 206 Troyer Horizontals with cling plates and with tunnels/porches, 50 Troyer Verticals with tunnels/porches, 32 Super Gourds, and 36 Excluder Gourds. I have five Trendsetters: three 12 room houses; one 16 room house; and one 28 compartment system.
Nest-building is going full steam as the females bring in mud and the males bring in dry oak leaves. I suspect there will be some nice mud dams in both gourds and houses this season!
Today April 2, 2015 several SY male martins succeeded in securing gourds in a new K24 system I had erected mainly for the SYs. I believe we will be seeing many more SY males arriving in the next few weeks and there is still plenty of room, but they will have to fight viciously the dominant ASY males which are controlling multiple gourds/house rooms.
April is usually the deadliest month for migratory Accipiter hawks and merlins (small falcons) to attack our two colonies. The attacks can occur at any time during the day as the raptors pass over and are attracted to the hundreds of vocalizing martins. I have witnessed NUMEROUS attacks by these raptors on our purple martins since establishing my colony in 2005.
Because more martins are arriving daily there are current residents at our colonies nearly all the time. These martins are protecting their territory from the new arrivals. Many savage battles are occurring with martins rolling on the ground after falling from the gourd racks/houses. Sometimes the combatants become drenched from early morning dew and one or both will be unable to fly until they dry out.
Gangs of ASY male martins are now brutally attacking and raping female martins that are trying to gather nesting material or eat egg shells or pursuing females and assaulting them in flight. These attacks are however MILD compared to what will happen soon when the females are getting ready to lay eggs. The males KNOW when a female has an egg inside her and it is absolutely HORRIBLE when a gang of males pounces on a female and beats her to the ground. I have seen over a dozen males completely covering a female in a violent orgy as each male tries to rape her. They will rape her until she can’t fly and I have seen them break female martins’ wings and peck their eyes nearly out. Every male wants to spread his genes and the only way he can do it is by fertilizing a female. Each season some females are seriously injured or killed by gangs of ASY males and I have rescued many that have been beat down in hayfields by sex crazed males. The females can’t fly because they are soaking wet from morning dew.
Here are some photos of my martin colony. These show various sections of my colony and the last one is a panoramic photo of the entire colony.
This photo shows the total colony.
Steve
