Five Martins Confirmed Dead - Starting Over

[billb]

Sad to say my 6 early arrivals are no longer here. Checked the house today and found 4 dead (3 males and 1 female) with 3 in 1 apartment. Also found another dead male on the ground about 30 yards from the house. Some crickets still on porches where I left them. Last saw the martins huddled on the porch Wednesday. Worst cold was Tuesday morning with a low of 10 degrees, staying below freezing until late Wednesday. Being without power for 2.5 days and water for 1.5 days, and now this, makes it an awful start to 2021. I expect there are worse situations than at my colony throughout the south.

Anyone know of a tally of known Martin deaths from this weather event being kept by PMCA If so, where do I add my numbers? Curious to get a head count, but then it would be too depressing for most of us to see.

Anxiously waiting for the next arrivals. Hope they wait a week or so be sure this extreme phase is over. Good luck to everyone!

[Whippy]

It's tough to hear that Bill.

I don't have any Martins in Plano yet but my big concern, in addition to the early arrivals such as yours, are the ones in transit and how they have or have not dealt with the cold snap. We can count the Martins that perished at the colonies but we can't count the ones that have not made it to their colonies yet.

Time will tell and reports of colony updates moving into March and April will be interesting to hear. I hope they remain strong.

Coolwhips

[sharonkayford]

Sorry to hear of this news.
SK :(

[dsonyay]

My friend has lost close to 20. He’s even had heatlamps going under his t14. Even with warm compartments they haven’t been able to feed. Supplemental hasnt helped. None want to take eggs or mealworms.. whetjer flcked in the air or on a flat dish near entrances

I had three at one point... and over the past few days a male. Havent seen him lately.

It feels fantastic outside today— Lafayette area. Low 40s .. no wind. I see mosquito hawks flying around so I’m thinking there might be some feeding going on.

A couple more cold mornings togo.. but much warmer PM temps with clear skies

Good news is many more thousands are heading here still to come. This is nature

[dsonyay]

We found one on the ground very lethargic. Brought him inside. In a box with pine needles. Used a dropper and got him to drink water with eletrolytes. He perked up and is flying around now.
He didn’t eat, so we’re hoping he can catch a few bugs this afternoon as ot warms to near 50

[C.C.Martins]

Dsonyay,
Maybe feed it like we do starved chick's? May shy from putting water down their mouth, could go down the wrong pipe. Try to dip the crickets or meal worms in the water.

[dsonyay]

Dsonyay,
Maybe feed it like we do starved chick's? May shy from putting water down their mouth, could go down the wrong pipe. Try to dip the crickets or meal worms in the water.

Yep.. he’s been hand feeding him mealworms soaked in water and little bits of plain scarmbled eggs. The male is doing well.

[C.C.Martins]

Good!!!! Man, that's a win. I'm sure that poor bird is relieved.

[flyin-lowe]

Hate to hear of the losses. Back to the OP, I don't know of anyplace keeping track of martin deaths due to the cold snap. The number of people who never report those type of things is so big I don't think they could ever get an accurate count. Of every landloard on this site there are probably 100 or more who do not even know about this forum.

[billb]

Yep, probably too big a task to get an accurate estimate of the number of deaths due to a certain event. Also, like Coolwhip said, the number of birds on the migration north that succumbed to the weather cannot be counted or estimated accurately. Unfortunately, that may be the greatest number.

The weather is nice today and not expected to get below freeze temp after tonight, but I do not expect any new arrivals for a few days based on this event.

With this behind us, I wish good luck to everyone this season.

[JulieMattox]

I had 10 martins here in Yantis, Tx when the cold weather started. My colony had been trained to eat eggs and crickets, both tossed and on trays. It was too cold to use the trays as the eggs and crickets would freeze immediately. Tossed eggs and crickets whenever they came out. Sad to say I lost three but the other seven are still doing good today. Hopefully I can keep them going until temperatures get over 50. Probably two more days of feeding. Can hardly believe that they made it through -1 degree.

[brent]

It is so good to hear the sharing from fellow landlords on how they are handling this weather event in regards to the martins. I don't feel so alone. Thanks for sharing. I counted 6 dead and I'm sure more. On a bright note, I counted over 10 return this evening.
Some weak but some strong. Tomorrow warmer, better for all of us.
Brent

[Spiderman]

I had 5 Martins that were here when the cold weather happened. They went for 4 days without feeding and temperature was -3 one night. I went to a local bait shop before the snow and ice storm and bought 500 crickets. I froze 200 of them in zip lock bags.

I had lowered the gourds previously and when I went though them found 2 males that were still alive, others had perished. Had a slide in the entrance so they could not escape.

Brought the Troyer horizontal gourds into my garage and mounted it to a pin on a shelf. They readily took crickets. Made it a couple of days feeding 40 crickets per day 1/ 2 in the morning and 1/2 in the evening.

One of the males died. I then found an old cat carrier in the attic and transferred the other one, after adding a bunch of pine straw. He would readily take crickets from my hand and would demand more through out the day.

He ate 40-50 crickets per day while in the cat carrier. Would drink water from a small bowl. (This is the part to remember, because an adult Martin has a huge appetite).

I released him yesterday at 1:00pm after he ate 20 crickets in the morning and that was the last of 500 crickets. I had kept him for 7 days at that time. It’s 21 degrees right now but after tonight the weather will be much warmer and the 10”s of ice and snow we got will quickly melt. He really didn’t take to the scrambled eggs even when mixed with the crickets. He would eat a bite or two but then pick out every piece of cricket.

When I released him he flew like a Champ and went about 100 yards and landed in a tree to survey the situation. The 2nd time he flew he went 100’s of yards flying very strong and out of sight.

[dsonyay]

No tally that I know of , but figure it’s in the thousands.

But the bright side.. tens of thousands haven’t even arrived yet, followed by many thousands of SY PMs.

Any survivors of this cold snap are definitely the healthiest, hardiest PM of the group, which is in itself a positive.

Pretty sure mine are gone.. but they’ll be replaced over the next weeks. It’s frustrating.

[Sharon - Central TX]

I’m so sorry and sad to hear of all the poor martins that did what comes naturally and died during this unprecedented winter storm. We only had one beautiful male arrive at the start but by then our entire rack was so frozen over he couldn’t get in and we couldn’t even lower it. He finally just sat on top of one gourd with his wings drooping. He flew down to the lake that borders our property skimming it looking for bugs. I don’t know where he went from there but I doubt he survived the week.
The sun came out yesterday and we were able to get the gourds down and all the ice knocked off of them. Today it’s sunny too. Much of the snow/ice has melted. So thankful and relieved the next few days will be warmer and hope to see some of our martins return.
We have found other species of birds dead on the ground, frozen. Very sad
Busy attending to all the details that came with no electricity, no water. Water and electricity now but under a boil water notice.