High death rates

[Craigjeweler]

Has anyone observed higher than normal dead chicks this year.
We are located in Ct. and have a much higher # of young and old birds dying.
I have contacted several other landlords in the area with the same results.
Wether may be a factor, 3 days of rain , very hot.
Been a landlord for 18 years, 92 gourds, 77 occupied ,and never had lost so many.

[dsonyay]

I’m in South Louisiana and had a very good year. I had just under 40 hatchlings and lost 6 in the nests. The rest fledged.

I had no adults die, except for the scores that died in the major freeze we had down here. I had one ASY male at the time, and not certain but he may have made it . I had multiple arrivals right after the freeze so it was hard to tell for sure.

[brent]

Do you think it can be attributed to that new disease that has been killing birds? There was a post about that earlier but martins were not listed as one of the birds affected. Sorry to hear about your loss. Do you see anything unusual about them? Did you find them in the nest or on the ground? Sad to hear.
Brent

[Craigjeweler]

All were in nests, ranging from one day old to adults, reaching out to other landlords in the area same results. Never had this happen before on this extreme. Lack of food?. Have seen a decline in dragonflies & moths this year.

[Martin man RI]

You are not alone. Sadly one of the largest Purple Martin Population recored in Rhode Island has been decimated. They will recover hundreds of Chicks mostly
Young day old chicks and some feather ones have died as well. All the way out to the Cape Cod Mother nature can be very cruel. All we can so is remove the dead
ones and there will be another spring. I cant tell you how many sleep less nights i have had and up at 5am to reach site to clean out the dead before the flys and maggots
get a foot hole. Im on my second go around of cleaning and replacing foul nests. And i have a full time job besides taking care of 10 Martin colony's five in the town
where i live Barrington one in Westerly RI and Two in Rehoboth MA and another in Seekonk MA The most northern colony it seems were hit the worst. Im sure the sites
in coastal New Hampshire have been lost. I keep in touch with most of the landlords in RI and MA and we keep in touch in case of a disaster like this.. A large number
of birds did miss the weather bullet so we will enjoy and be grateful we have them the Martin has made a great come back in this area with the starling Resistant gourds
Many colony's are in public locations Country clubs . And one college site. And few private home owners have helped to bring back the Martin.
I lost a colony in Northern RI in 2005 and swore i would never go back and i never did. I started 10 new sites and many others have joined. And i feel if you have
Martins you should stay with locations at lower elevations and stay away form sites with over 200 ft elevation. In northern states. I was depressed for days
but now i see all my heathy chicks and how well they are. I once again a happy person. 3 days of rain was the main killer and cut off food to many adults as they
were grounded looking for bugs on the ground. Flying in traffic to grab what ever bug they could off the warmer pavement. Im sure some were hit by cars too.
I was hooked by that first pair with two chicks. Back in 1994. Now im a landlord to hundreds.
Ray

[ToyinPA]

Sorry for all the losses. 3 days of rain would mean no food/insects, so they most likely all starved. Add in lack of insects & it's a recipe for disaster. Adults will feed themselves before they feed their chicks. It's natures way.

Martins can not find food, because insects aren't flying....
If it's raining.
Temps are hot.
Temps are 50 or below.

Supplemental feeding is something all landlords should learn to do. Many areas are seeing a major lack of insects thanks to weather, pesticides, herbicides, flooding, etc. There are many articles & posts about supplemental feeding. The best time to teach your colony to accept supplemental feeding is in spring, when they first arrive hungry from migration, but anytime will work if you have the above weather conditions.

Toy in PA

[Dave Duit]

Hi Craig,
Like ToyinPA mentioned, probably starvation. I know it may be too late with your colony, but please contact as many nearby colony landlords as possible and spread the word about supplement feeding.

[Rick B]

I don't think most realize the volume a colony can eat a day why the young are 20+ days old. It's been cool, cloudy, raining off and on a few day here in WI and the birds are hungry. It's a great time to try to flip crickets or eggs to supplement your martins.

eggs.png (253.53 KiB) Viewed 5487 times

[flyin-lowe]

When you say three days of rain what type of rainfall exactly are you talking about? If it is raining from sun up to sun down that is a problem. 4-5 hours of rain in a day is a lot but that still leave 9 or so hours of daylight to feed. They obviously need to find more food in a rain shortened day but having hours long periods between rains gives them time to feed.

[dsonyay]

I had a lot of losses last year. Very frustrating. I assumed it was mites because a few jumped way too early. But I also found multiples dead in the compartments. So frustrating. I know how you feel. But honestly, you’re doing all you can.. sone things are completely out of your control. I know this won’t come out as great advice. Keep your head up.. march on.

[Rick B]

flyin-lowe

It was low clouds, drizzling, cool north west breeze with no open sky. Most of the martins were not going out to hunt, the ones that were out were bring in small bugs. I feed eggs 4 times yesterday 7 eggs at a time. They would have the tray empty in under 10 minuets . This is a remote colony about 1.5 miles away, If they are hungry and see me will fly to me. This is a pic. from last year, I'm in my vehicle this is after 3 days of weather not over 40 degrees. ] The good news , at about 6 PM the sky opened up and and at the last feeding they were bringing in dragonflies!
[attachment=1]food.jpg[/attachment

[Martintown33]

That’s incredible that they fly to you for food,Rick. I’m in SE Louisiana, had my colony for 21 years. I never had to supplement feed in all that time due to mild February’s here. But this year, we had a friek 6 days freeze. I tried tossed crickets, crickets on platters, and on their porches. They were starving but still showed no interest. I tossed for 6 days, until most of my early arrivals ASY, died and others left. Several other landlords I know had no success either..I was wondering how did you train your birds to accept food? I’m wondering if the general population in the south is just not exposed to offered food, while it’s more common in the north and makes them more easy to train. How did you do it.? Any tips would be appreciated,.. I don’t want anything like last year to happen again.
Thanks,
Rob

[Rick B]

Rob.

I started out with flipping crickets with a large plastic spoon. It was the second year with the remote colony and after getting martins back in the area I was going to do whatever I could to get them to eat..
I don't recall how may day in a row it was cold, wet, and sleeting, but the birds were just staying in the house. I went down in the morning and flipping until I was soaking wet and freezing.
In the afternoon I put on my snowmobile helmet and gloves and went back. It was only a few minutes of flipping and female flew up and grabbed one.
She kept eating them and then the 3 males joined in.

I would say our weather make it easier to get them to eat . The crickets are not cheep, so I started flipping the eggs with the crickets. When I got the feeding platform, just putting the eggs on it the birds went right to eating off it. If they are finding food they just ignore the eggs on the platform and I end up feeding the fish in the pond the dried up eggs.

You could try flipping crickets when your young birds are about 20 days old ,the adults my start catching them to feed the young in the house. Once the learn I don't think they will forget.

[Martintown33]

Thanks for the tips. I will try again next season, when they first get here in early February, when insects aren’t so abundant . Once it warms up, they gorge on dragon flies. The air is full of them here, so they’re never hungry enough to train. And when chicks are hatching and growing, the dragon flies are at peak numbers… if it rains for a few days constantly, then I might have a chance to train them. But even when it rains they seem to fly off and find food.. I guess I’ll just try very hard when they first arrive.. keep at it, til they hopefully accept them.. I’d like to have them trained before any severe weather issues occur..
Thanks,
Rob