JimmyP wrote:I always get a little ticked when I drive by someone's place and see a martin house pole's without predator guards on it !! Snakes and predators do their dirty work after dark so be assured you're losing eggs and birds. I learned this as a kid living on a farm snakes would eat all our chickens egg's not sure how they do it but a snake can smell an egg a mile away. USE PREDATOR GUARDS !!!
It is indeed infuriating to see some of the videos of martins in unprotected housing. :(
"Flirting with Disaster" should only be sung by Molly Hatchet - not a practice by purple martin landlords.
"Sometimes", said Pooh, "the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
2023 - 82 pair
2022 - 80 pair
2021 - 75 pair
2020 - 78 pair
2019 - 80 pair http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com
Had Martin paradise for 40 years. Very noisy, young hanging out the gourds. Last year, hawk attack. Suddenly I could barely tell I had martins. They would slip in quitely to feed. No visitors. They communicated to the young to stay hidden and very quite. Very intelegent!! This year, zero martin sightings. Silent spring!! This city has become a sanctuary city for hawks.
My colony at a previous location was hit by a sharp-shinned hawk. I had averaged 18 pair per year but the year he started attacking, I only had 11 pair. You would rarely see the martins. When they came home to roost, they would go directly into the gourds.
This hawk would migrate out of my neighborhood about mid-April but he returned for several years. It took me a while to find his method of operation. He would hide in a 40 foot Live Oak tree in my neighbors yard. Then, having the advantage of height, surprise and speed, he would attack.
When he finally migrated out of the area, it was late in the season and difficult to attrack new martins. By this time, the neighborhood trees had grown large after 20 years. With the loss of my core adult martins, I never got above 8 pair again. The last year I lived there, I only had three pair.
After a few years, he stopped coming. If not for the size of the trees, I think I could have recovered. Basically, I was starting all over again with martins unaware of the hawk attacks.
