What a roller coaster ride!!

[Guest]

Really excited newbie here from Central Texas. We have had an amazing two days. Yesterday hubby and I were choring out front of our house, in fact cutting down some really old, scrubby live oak in an area that we wanted to move our gourd rack to. During a little rest break, all of a sudden, we had two ASY males catching air and just cruising right over our house and they were LOW. They turned and headed toward our back yard, where our 12 unit (now converted to a 6 unit S&K house) is. We tore through the house and caught them actually on the PM house checking things out. They didn't stay but just a few seconds, but we could tell they were males and adults, all purple. Naturally, we were disappointed when they left, but certainly elated since this was the first real interest we've seen in our house.

We went back to working and those darned birds kept coming back and just hovering and playing, but no more house visits. I have been playing the dawn song every morning until about 10:00 a.m. then turn it off until about 4:00 p.m. Well, just found out that the advice to keep it going all day has some real merit, because I did keep it going all day yesterday and we had the two house visits and about 9 flyovers, that we actually saw.

This a.m., I was up early and brought my coffee out, turned on the dawn song and sat here for 40 minutes or better and saw nary a thing. Husband gets up and around, grabs a cup of java, and within 5 minutes is waving frantically at me to come outside...yep, we had two on the house and peeking in the doors. When it was all said and done, we had 8 house visits, 2 chambers entered and I can't say how many flyovers. I'm convinced my husband is a PM magnet

Newbies, if you have the dawn song cd, play it, alot. Yes, we're in Central Texas and there is a large population of PMs in this state, and I'm sure what we're seeing are some of those recently reported hitting the coast, but I really don't care, as long as some choose our house to live in.

There is an incredible thrill even if they're just "dropping by". But you can sure get caught up in the "what do I do now, shall we do this or shall we do that" stuff. I guess we just have to settle down and wait it out. But there are really alot of highs and lows to this whole process, exciting as it may be.

Hope every one on this forum gets to experience the thrill we've had, no other word for it...it is AMAZING!

Lori Patton

[Guest]

Lori...what a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing. That is our morning ritual...get a cup of java and watch the martins...enjoy!

We played the dawn song CD consistently for the three years as we were trying to build our colony. I had it on timer to start an hour before dawn and repeat in the evening before the martins came back to roost. Since my colony is up in numbers and we had a lot of birds return early, I only played the CD occasionally this year.

There are positive and negative feedback comments on the forum regarding dawn song but my philosophy is do what works for you!

Congrats!!!!!!


Sue
City by the Sea, TX

[Guest]

The only question I have now is "How in the world can anyone get anything done?" We're too busy with our eyes on the sky to do much else...you know, we might miss something!!


It's almost laughable, really.

Yea, I know what you mean about the pros and cons about the dawn song. Even before we started playing it alot, we had a hawk hit one of our decoys and I only got a glimpse of it, but it was big and honking on. Mostly we have red tailed hawk around here and was relieved to read on the forum that they are not particularly a problem, according to those who most likely know. We had a few starlings a couple of weeks ago, but the SREH seemed to cool them off this immediate area (our yard) and I've been managing the sparrows, at least for now.

We've had more flybys this afternoon and one landed, obviously at this point there's no way to tell if it's one of our prior visitors.

Keeping our fingers crossed.

Lori

[Guest]

You'll soon learn:
You put everything on hold from Feb-July.
You'll have a "krick" in your neck Feb-Aug.
Every bird will sound like a PM Feb-Jan.
You'll have to buy a pr of sunglasses
You'll spend 6 out of 7 nights a week putting "your"
babies to bed.
You'll eat outside alot more.
You'll have atleast one accident while staring at the sky.
You'll drive around trying to find EVERY PM house in a
10 mile range

Did I forget anything? It gets worse each year!!
Oh yeah, you'll start dreaming about PMs.
You'll buy a purple car.... sorry, that was a dream!!!

Have a great year!!
Chuck

[Guest]

Well, Chuck, so far you've hit a bunch of "what will happens".

1. We ate outside tonite watching these crazy birds. Four showed up,
one ASY male and female (Pete and Tilly) and an ASY friend who had to check out one of the condo with Pete and Tilly...that was interesting to watch and then a fourth showed up a bit later.

2. As for putting them to bed, Pete and Tilly stuck around and literally went into every hole but one and seemed to have quite a discussion about which one they were going to use. They each would perch in front of one on different levels and chit chat to beat the band, then they would each go into their respective compartment and stay for awhile. Then they would both come out and take off and do some fly arounds for a bit. Then they would hit the house at an entirely different location, more discussion, etc. It literally was all but dark when they finally settled in, of course on the back side of the house, wouldn't you know, but they are here for the night, tho by morning they just might be somewhere else on the house.

3. Pete had absolutely no problem with the SREH, but Tilly seemed a bit more reluctant and it seemed he had to do some coaxing, but she is using them. We have two holes that are regular and 4 that are SREH. The one they're in is SREH, which pleases me a great deal.


No to the purple car, says hubby. Funny you should bring that up. His sister and husband were here in February and rented a car and drove up from Austin...guess what they drove up in - yep a Purple PT Cruiser convertible and it was PURPLE. It was our only week of winter here so we didn't get to drive around with the top down but no doubt it was an omen.

Live it, breathe it and laugh with it, that's all we can do with this crazy hobby. If we are lucky enough to have Pete and Tilly stay, we will be absolutely thrilled.

What fun this really is.

Lori

[John Atteberry]

Hello Lori,
Congrats on your sightings and hopefully your new martins! Sounds like your going to have a good year! John!

[Sparky]

You'll soon learn:
You put everything on hold from Feb-July.
You'll have a "krick" in your neck Feb-Aug.
Every bird will sound like a PM Feb-Jan.
You'll have to buy a pr of sunglasses
You'll spend 6 out of 7 nights a week putting "your"
babies to bed.
You'll eat outside alot more.
You'll have atleast one accident while staring at the sky.
You'll drive around trying to find EVERY PM house in a
10 mile range

Did I forget anything? It gets worse each year!!
Oh yeah, you'll start dreaming about PMs.
You'll buy a purple car.... sorry, that was a dream!!!

Have a great year!!
Chuck

How true!
Congrats on your new residents!