Intense Heat and Dying Birds

[TexasMatt]

I am sorry to hear about the problems you are having. I am up here nearby in Buda and have 24 starving babies in shoe boxs due to the drought. Around 10 have died. I will post more later. This is reminds me of the great drought of 2011. I know how you feel.

[Martintown33]

Great to hear whippy.. I’m glad it’s working out. Good job!
Rob

[C.C.Martins]

I am sorry to hear about the problems you are having. I am up here nearby in Buda and have 24 starving babies in shoe boxs due to the drought. Around 10 have died. I will post more later. This is reminds me of the great drought of 2011. I know how you feel.

So sorry to hear this, a dry cold winter, two freezes combined with lack of rain and heat makes conditions unbearable. Some of our chicks are due to fledge any day, most about a week later. I'm taking vacation next week just in case.
I flip twice a day, when I walk out front now to do anything the adults are ready to catch food. If I sit on the porch they see me and come looking for food.

Wish your birds the best,
Tom

[Sharon - Central TX]

( I am sorry to hear about the problems you are having. I am up here nearby in Buda and have 24 starving babies in shoe boxs due to the drought. Around 10 have died. I will post more later. This is reminds me of the great drought of 2011. I know how you feel.)

TXMATT
Is there a bird rehabber anywhere near where you live? We called All Things Wild yesterday afternoon and they are taking martins.
It’s located just north of Georgetown near Salado so probably too far for you. There might be one closer. We couldn’t get there before they closed and ended up guessing which gourds to put two into we found on the ground. We went ahead and did a complete nest check on that pole and 18 young were missing. We’ve also had several attacks by a Cooper’s hawk lately so it’s unknown how many succumbed to the heat or how many were taken.
The next two days the heat won’t be quite as bad (so they say), in the upper 90’s. We have several 24-25 days old still in gourds. Praying they will make it.

[Martintown33]

So sorry for all you Texas landlords. Noble efforts y’all are making…
Best of luck,
Rob

[Sharon - Central TX]

We just had two more jumpers. Hubby was able to get one. The other tried to fly and ended up on the ground down the hill behind our home. Hubby immediately went to get him and out of nowhere a hawk swooped in and grabbed it. Apparently he was hiding just waiting in a tree somewhere for the right opportunity. He came from a different direction than our property. There are no trees near where the baby landed so he had to be watching, waiting. This is so discouraging.

[C.C.Martins]

Dang Sharon! So sorry, yes its discouraging. To put it mildly. Hits keep coming. Your doing all you can against the mother nature juggernaut to give them a chance, as are many here. When there are so many a rehabber is the way to go, just hard to decide where to put them when they are all under stress.

Came home to fledges in the gourd arms one on the roof and adults begging for food, so while sending up superworms, June bugs and crickets was getting dive bombed by the male. Im almost 30 feet from them.

Nothing on the ground yet here, one jumped at our satelite site.

Its a rough time,
Wishing you well from Corpus,
Tom

[SCleland]

Just now I read with great interest the 2010 thread on the pros and cons of misting houses to cool them down. I recommend it.

My question is related, but different. Would it be worthwhile to point a garden hose sprayer straight up and create a fountain effect around ten feet up that PMs could fly through? Presumably this would cool them a bit, and also presumably they would ignore it if they knew that getting damp on a 95-degree day was a bad idea.

Any downsides to this idea? Again, this would be at least 20 feet away from the houses.

Thanks,

Stuart

[[email protected]]

Hello everyone. Thanks for all the help.
Here is latest in the saga. Recall that I lost 15-20 birds in the heat with 30-40 jumpers over three days. Then we installed the misters. The first day we had 4 jumpers but no dead birds. That is a big improvement. The second day we had three jumpers of which one died. I did not spend all afternoon with the birds looking for jumpers. I left for an hour at a time. On one trip I found a bird on the ground and in the sun: dead. He likely laid there about an hour and his weak body combined with the sun was too much.
Overall I believe that the misters helped a great deal, far less jumpers with only one dead bird. However; I need to add that the two days with the misters were a little cooler than the previous three days. Those two days were 99-102 instead of 101-105 for the previous three. There was a little breeze as well. So the jumper/death rate may have been a little better due to weather conditions too.
I did a nest check and found several smaller birds dead in the nests. They either cooked to death or starved, or a combination of both. My estimate is that I lost 30-40 of my 104 birds in the last few days. A few could have fledged, rather than died, as some were ready to fledge.

I have two questions:

1) What/How do I feed the weak birds? I tried to feed them mushed up dried meal worms mixed with water. They did not go for it. What can I feed them? How do I present to them and get them to eat? And where can I get the food for them? We live in a small rural Texas town and do not have a pet store.

2) Do parent birds identify there own and feed them exclusively? If I place a downed bird in a nest of birds the same size, will mamma feed that one as well? In the process of returning birds to the nests it was impossible to tell where each bird came from. I merely place them in nests with birds approximately the same size. I tried to not load any nest too heavily.

Thanks for all your help
Dan

[C.C.Martins]

Hi Dan,
Terribly sorry, hope this helps:

Go to either armstrongs crickets, the critter depot, or fluker farms all on line order adult crickets. Expedite it, they send real fast.

Ok once you have them i feed by taking the chick and holding it, towels is a good idea as they poop alot. Dip the cricket in clear pedialit or water, gently pry open a corner or from the tip of the beak and once its open pop the cricket in. Sounds easy but sometimes all they get hold of is a leg and just look at you. They are stubborn.
They will close their beak. Wait till they swallow it, get another one ready and repeat. They will eat 18-20 of them. Once they catch on you don't have to pry. Try to feed them in a quiet spot, I fed one on our back porch and it kept getting distracted by the other martins and took a while.
Tip: you could try whistling, as a reflex they open their mouths....have not tried that but supposed to work.
Keep them in a box somewhere quiet while feeding the one.

If you have that many jumpers, id feed and try as best guess to get them back in. Iv moved chicks before parents don't miss a beat, key is to not overwhelm the adults or their chicks or you compound the problem.

I really hope this helps you, they are lucky to have you.
Respectfully,
Tom

[G Saner]

Sharon

I read with interest, your post concerning a hawk taking a jumper. Earlier in this thread, I described seeing my colony mob a large hawk. I knew that a hawk that large was no danger to an alert adult martin but starting thinking about the danger to a jumper.

I wondered if the hawk had learned to periodically patrol my colony and was taking fledglings from the ground. I had never seen that hawk around my colony before. That would explain why I only found 2 dead babies on the ground and why the Assisted Living residents reported not seeing any jumpers. A hawk has exceptional eyesight and could see a baby on the ground from a great distance. After reading your description about a hawk coming out of nowhere, it makes me think this is what is happening.

[TexasMatt]

Hello everyone. Thanks for all the help.
Here is latest in the saga. Recall that I lost 15-20 birds in the heat with 30-40 jumpers over three days. Then we installed the misters. The first day we had 4 jumpers but no dead birds. That is a big improvement. The second day we had three jumpers of which one died. I did not spend all afternoon with the birds looking for jumpers. I left for an hour at a time. On one trip I found a bird on the ground and in the sun: dead. He likely laid there about an hour and his weak body combined with the sun was too much.
Overall I believe that the misters helped a great deal, far less jumpers with only one dead bird. However; I need to add that the two days with the misters were a little cooler than the previous three days. Those two days were 99-102 instead of 101-105 for the previous three. There was a little breeze as well. So the jumper/death rate may have been a little better due to weather conditions too.
I did a nest check and found several smaller birds dead in the nests. They either cooked to death or starved, or a combination of both. My estimate is that I lost 30-40 of my 104 birds in the last few days. A few could have fledged, rather than died, as some were ready to fledge.

I have two questions:

1) What/How do I feed the weak birds? I tried to feed them mushed up dried meal worms mixed with water. They did not go for it. What can I feed them? How do I present to them and get them to eat? And where can I get the food for them? We live in a small rural Texas town and do not have a pet store.

2) Do parent birds identify there own and feed them exclusively? If I place a downed bird in a nest of birds the same size, will mamma feed that one as well? In the process of returning birds to the nests it was impossible to tell where each bird came from. I merely place them in nests with birds approximately the same size. I tried to not load any nest too heavily.

Thanks for all your help
Dan

HI Dan,


I certainly do not have all the answers but I can share with you same of the experiences I have had that are related to your questions. Im in Buda south of Austin and its a nightmare. a desert like landscape. The body count is going up daily.
Parents and babies do identify eachother. If you have nests where parents are still able to feed their babies and the babies are of comparible size, you can add babies to the nest and most of the time, the parents will pick them up. This will be the best option ~ The problem this year is our region is heading into a drought which cuts off food supply for the parents so they can no longer capture enough dragon flies to maintain nearly full grown babies. The starvation due to the drought setting in is the main killer. We had a killer drought in 2011 that wiped out many colonies in Texas

A golden rule is these babies can not be separated from their parents OR a competent parent. Their chances of survival are greatly reduced if they are not being kept by a parent bird .
Another golden rule is there is no person on this earth that can take the place of what God has done naturally for the survivability of a PM nesting cycle through His creation. Even rehabbers have to return rehabbed birds to a active nest/colony that has not yet fledged to pick them up if they are doing it right. Most rehabbers will not take grounded birds in the dozens. ~Don't feel bad if you have done all you can with a high body count in the end.
You cannot duplicate what Purple Martin adult parents do for Purple Martin babies in a drought where an entire colony goes down and not just a few nests with issues.



You can get Beef heart. cut the fat and heart membrane away to just straight red heart meat and cut into little pieces to feed them. Beef heart is not meant to replace their regular diet but supplimental to it for short time periods. Its very hydrating and cheap at $3.00- $5.00 a package. Some HEBs will have it and Fiesta will have it. I put the pieces in water and give it to them that way. This is easier to get down their throat then any mash form of food.- or meail worms you canot hold onto when a bird doesnt want to eat.
You can also purchase live crickets on line to be delivered to you. Freeze em, unfreeze em and hand feed them the same way. If a bird opens their beak for you which some will once they understand your feeding them, thats all the better. Many will not because they are scared and we are not their momma. Giants sticking fingers in their mouth is foreign to them. hahaha


I have to hold the bigger birds in the my left hand and use a finger nail (right hand)to very very gently and slowly open that beak so that I can use my finger holding the bird to slip it between the beak keeping the mouth open while sliding a piece of beef heart to the back of their throat with my right hand. I make sure that I do not injury or crush the forked tongue looking thing coming out of the bottom of the mouth. They breath out of that.

I've had clusters of 28- 34 birds in shoe boxes to feed and I too do not know what gourds they jumped from since entire broods have jumped.

[bigdobber]

Hi guys and girls
First time poster in many years. It seems the heat is sure taking it's toll this year. There are misters for outside patios and such that seems like could be rigged on top of the houses or gourds. They come with quarter inch plastic tubing that could easily be made to raise and lower with the housing. I saw one on Amazon has like 60ft tubing with 22 mister nozzles. It probably wouldn't take near that many nozzles but maybe use five or six and block the rest of them off somehow. I've never tried any of that, but sure seems like it would work.
This is my 23rd year with Martins. I started with 1 wooden house in 1999, the next couple years I got 2 Trio Granpaw Houses(modified them) and 4 Nature Gourds so I only have room for 24 birds. Most years I've had mostly 100 percent occupancy except last years freeze took it's toll and this year it's the heat. I've only found 2 dead hatchlings this year. Most years I've fledged 50 or 60 birds. I kinda lost count last year because of the freeze. I live in Llano Tx. and am 86 yrs old....so far :-). Oh... and I use the S&S sparrow trap and have probably offed a thousand or so sparrows the last twenty or so years.

[TexasMatt]

Hi guys and girls
First time poster in many years. It seems the heat is sure taking it's toll this year. There are misters for outside patios and such that seems like could be rigged on top of the houses or gourds. They come with quarter inch plastic tubing that could easily be made to raise and lower with the housing. I saw one on Amazon has like 60ft tubing with 22 mister nozzles. It probably wouldn't take near that many nozzles but maybe use five or six and block the rest of them off somehow. I've never tried any of that, but sure seems like it would work.
This is my 23rd year with Martins. I started with 1 wooden house in 1999, the next couple years I got 2 Trio Granpaw Houses(modified them) and 4 Nature Gourds so I only have room for 24 birds. Most years I've had mostly 100 percent occupancy except last years freeze took it's toll and this year it's the heat. I've only found 2 dead hatchlings this year. Most years I've fledged 50 or 60 birds. I kinda lost count last year because of the freeze. I live in Llano Tx. and am 86 yrs old....so far :-). Oh... and I use the S&S sparrow trap and have probably offed a thousand or so sparrows the last twenty or so years.
[/quote/]


Nice to meet you. We have had Martins since 2008 but I have not posted here for a while. You have been keeping Martins for a long time then. So is the drought bad there as well? If you have lost only 2 birds so far, I'd say thats pretty good. I have lost probably around 30 so far and more to come. Im struggling to feed em but there are many of them and they are in bad shape. Do you have any water tanks or ponds nearby they go to at your place?

[bigdobber]

Hi Texas Matt
The Llano River runs about a quarter mile from my house I'm sure that helps some. Actually I'm not having a good year at all. I've only found a couple dead young but I've had some empty cavities all year and also a few missing young this year. I've never seen any sign of predators before but this has indeed been a strange year. I have lots of birds come in at sundown many of them fledglings and still have 2 or 3 cavities that haven't fledged yet. I guess all we can do is hope for a better year next year.

[robndebby]

I do not know if this will help anyone, but a few years ago we experienced the same heat situation on two gourds that were late laying eggs. I checked on the babies and they looked very, very hot. I got some of those freezer bags (the ones you can refreeze-my wife's meds are packed with them as when her meds are sent, they need to be kept cold). I wrapped two of the blocks in a washrag and put one in each. When I later checked on them, they were lying on top of the washrag and it was cooler in there. I put in two newly frozen and kept checking them. I do believe it saved the lives of those babies. I also got a sheet of white plastic, cut a rectangle, and affixed them above the individual gourds.

[Roymg]

I have taken my water hose and gave my birds some relief.