Texas Migration

[tbone8705]

I am just wondering if one could say the migration in Texas is pretty much over. I had some lookers a month ago but no one decided to stay. Houses and Gourds were all ready with new straw and all were checked out but no takers, and no sparrows or starlings to compete with. Just wondering if I should close up everything and pray for next year.

[JudyA]

tbone8705,
Welcome to the forum! Do not close your housing until all martins have migrated south. This years fledglings will be investigating housing trying to locate housing for next year.

Read everything you can about how to attract martins and make sure that by start of next season, you are meeting requirements. A critical requirement is having open flyways.

- Judy

[John Barrow]

SY migration normally extends until early June along the Texas coast and is running a couple of weeks late this year. There are still good numbers of SY martins migrating in to the country and should be for another 3 or 4 weeks. There is also the possibility of predators disrupting an existing site and causing abandonment, in which case abandoning martins might choose to relocate and renest.

Another reason to keep housing open is that hatch year birds, post-fledging, will wander about a broad area surrounding their natal colony imprinting potential nesting sites for subsequent years. That behavior will be prevalent in your area until mid to late July. If your housing is not overrun by other pest species (S&S) there is no reason to close the housing until mid to late July.

[Fireflyfisherman]

Mr Barrow, I always enjoy your Texas Martin migration updates and have been looking for it this week. I am glad to hear that the SYs are still working their way into and through Texas. Thank you for your update and send them up to North Texas area.

[Fireflyfisherman]

57 degrees and raining in north Texas. I'm hoping that this cold north wind is holding up the SYs at the coast because we haven't seen the a big groups of new arrivals up here. Does the weather and wind slow/speed up migrations? Have y'all been seeing any SYs?

[MamaBruff]

Thanks for the info John Barrow! I'm glad the SYs are running late!

Apparently Tbone8705 and I have Purple Martins that have imprinted on "other" types of housing in our respective areas. That is, housing/sites unlike what we have to offer. I will keep my housing open all summer, as I have every year.

I don't know about Tbone's home area, but as for the Joplin MO Hillbilly Junk Martins, many, many generations of them have become imprinted/ accustomed to trashy, leaning, cheap-o, cramped housing, with Hosp and Starling Thugs for neighbors. Their landlords play rowdy music and have trash, plastic kid toys, and cigarette butts lying around. Smoldering trash fires. Plenty of Trees encroaching and a snarling dog tied up help complete the scene.What's up with that? No offense meant to landlords that fit that category. You have martins and I don't. I know there are exceptions, so this is only my convoluted theory.... This sort of supports it too: I went to see if I could obtain my 87 y/o Auntie's Trio Grandma house, as she is unable to tend to it. It is at the back of her property, has the original 6x6 rooms with round holes, encroached by trees and weeds, packed with HOSP and starling nests... and (GASP!) a PAIR OF PURPLE MARTINS! How is that? REALLY!

Maybe the housing we offer is just too weird, too upscale, too roomy, too white and shiny, too scary (??) What is going on?

So maybe some of the SYs yet to arrive will have imprinted on our "different" housing/ sites. I can only hope. In the meantime, I am going to put up a plastic "Heavenly Haven" house in between my gourd rack and my people house to see if that will look familiar to them.

Hang in there Tbone, and all the other wannabes. One day it will happen.

[Luv Ya Purple]

I don't know about Tbone's home area, but as for the Joplin MO Hillbilly Junk Martins, many, many generations of them have become imprinted/ accustomed to trashy, leaning, cheap-o, cramped housing, with Hosp and Starling Thugs for neighbors. Their landlords play rowdy music and have trash, plastic kid toys, and cigarette butts lying around. Smoldering trash fires. Plenty of Trees encroaching and a snarling dog tied up help complete the scene.What's up with that?

Hang in there Tbone, and all the other wannabes. One day it will happen.

I'm sure many of us have seen the same. Around here people put up martin houses and get martins, but within a few years they lose martins due to bad housing and or not knowing how to manage the colony. If you have visiting martins they should eventually nest at your place. The answer is in your last sentence.

[MamaBruff]

LIKE

[taxidermy lady]

I like that TOO!!!
Hay there's still a bird wing from last year hanging out of one of the houses in town with s and s nesting in it and martins!!! JUST CRAZY! what we read this should never happen!!!!

[Rodger Drye]

Hey Mary,
Agree a lot on what you've said. I do believe Martin's imprint on different things - 1 being Housing. They also remember where they were born and where their home is. Some call it site tenacity, I call it homing instinct.
I try to get into the head or if there is such a thing "Think like a Martin". I try to feel what the Bird may be feeling.
When Martin's are happy it shows. You can tell just by watching and listening to your Birds.

That's one reason I still hang up 1/2 dozen of the little 6" Plastic Gourds with Round Holes I started with. I know now that they are way to small, but the Birds absolutely Love them!! They Love to go in and out and just hang on the entrance and swing. I know cause I watch them do it, even the ones that have their own nest and eggs do it.
So I'm certainly not going to remove them if it makes my Birds happy.! I do monitor each and every Gourd to educate myself on exactly what is going on with each Bird and my Colony as a whole...

I offer many different Gourds and even some Modified ones that I have fabricated. People like different houses why not Birds.? The only thing I don't offer is Aluminum housing. Summer's just get to darn hot here in NC. It's hot enough in my Plastic Gourds, but I can ventilate them. The A.H. Is like a sauna and I have lost nestlings trying to escape that heat.
Of course everyone has their own opinion on housing and other things as well - and that's fine.

I also play music for my Birds, usually Country & Western or something soothing in the afternoon.
I think it helps. It makes my Birds happy and when they're happy they do what Birds do best. They sing and lay eggs!!!
Rodger