Site fidelity

[jhcox]

My question is which one has the most site Fidelity the male or the female. Or do they both come back to the same site each year and pair back up. I’ve seen on here where people talk about the matriarchs coming back.

[James Strickland FL]

The Male has site Fidelity and the female will return if she has success at a site. It is not know if the same male and female will end back up with the same as the year before. I have to say yes they do in some cases as I have watched male would show up and go straight to a certain gourd and house and a female go straight to that gourd.

[jhcox]

Thank you James. I was just wondering if anyone one had banded any birds and tracked it over the years at their site.

[Sharon - Central TX]

Last year we had a pair return together very early for us. It was on Feb. 2. They both wanted in a gourd we had not yet opened. They kept flying back and forth and sitting on the porch like they were waiting for it to magically open. We have two poles with gourds. My husband went out to lower the one they wanted and they went to the other one sitting together and watching him, waiting. It was really cute. As soon as he opened the gourd they wanted and hoisted everything back up, they flew into it.
I have to think they were a returning pair from the previous year.

[jhcox]

Thank you Sharon. I had a pair do almost the same thing last year. But with out banding there’s just no way of really knowing. I’m trying really hard to convince a gentleman here in East TN that is one of the very few in the world that is certified to band humming birds. If I can get him to do it I will be able to know for sure if it’s the same male and female that return early every year. Have a great season everyone. God bless

[deancamp]

The PMCA has put geolocaters on over 100 Martins in PA. They should have some information on this subject.

[Archer]

An sy banded female showed up here in 2016 and nested successfully. She was born and raised the previous summer in a colony about 60 miles from here. She returned 2 more years to nest. She stayed on the same house but did use different holes. She did not return last summer.

[Fuzzmeister]

That’s very interesting archer, even though she did not show up last year it would be something if she showed up this year, I’m not sure what the life span is of a purple Martin, she would be 5 years old this year.

[Archer]

Fuzz, some martins can get near 10 years old, but the average is no where near that. Because researchers are using my colony in their studies, they have banded a lot of martins at my place. I do remember now that there was a banded pair here last year. We shall see if they return to my site and nest again.

[randyM]

I've been working with a local bird bander on my "new" martin colony. I've banded 16 HY martins in 2017, 29 in 2018, and 87 in 2019. I plan to band 100 in 2020. Of the 16 banded in 2017, two males returned in 2018 as SY birds (one successfully nested, the other stayed a few weeks then left the colony). These males were brothers hatched in the same nest. Both banded males returned again in 2019 and successfully nested. Of the 29 young banded in 2018, two females and one male returned as SY birds in 2019. All three of these banded birds successfully nested. Interestingly, the two females were sisters that hatched in the same nest AND they were the offspring of the male I banded at my colony in 2017 that successfully nested in 2018. I have a large capacity to grow my colony (300 available nest cavities) and plan to continue banding for the foreseeable future, so it will be interesting to keep track of the returning young. Especially to see if offspring from the bloodline with two generations of returning banded young have a higher propensity to return to my colony compared to other randomly banded birds.

[deancamp]

Randy, that is very interesting information. Please keep reporting your findings for all of us to learn from. Thanks

[Louise Chambers]

The PMCA did a banding study that ran for years and covered a pretty big area. Here's link to pdf: https://www.purplemartin.org/uploads/me ... -3-372.pdf

Here's a snip from conclusions at end of article:

Site Fidelity: Adult and subadult breeders have strong
site-fidelity and about half of them will return to their previous
colony site the following season. The other half presumably
died or breed elsewhere.

Also

banding
by the PMCA has
shown that a few martins
switch colony sites
from one year to the
next despite reproductive
success at the
other site.

There's lots more of interest summarized at end, take a look.