Help, our PM's are dying

[Guest]

Our pm's are dying, two yesterday, one today, they seem like they have broken necks, they can still flutter around on the ground, but their heads hang. We've been having a long cool and rainy spell, I thought they were starving,so I hand feed one meal worms yesterday, it seemed to perk it up but it's head still hung down. We also have a large number of Grackles, would they injure them like that?

[Mary Dawnsong]

Hi,

I am very sorry your martins are suffering.
I was not aware that any area south of me was experiencing martin-killing weather.

Has it been continuously rainy for 4 days or more? So much rain that they cannot hunt for flying insects?
If that is the case, then they are starving.
At about 4 or 5 days martins will lose so much muscle mass that they cannot fly. Possibly their muscles are so weak that they cannot hold their heads up either.

Martins that far gone would probably require a rehabilitator to save them, if that is even possible at this point.
You could concentrate on trying to save your remaining birds with supplemental feeding.

Here is an excellent PMCA Update article on supplemental feeding of martins, including egg:
http://purplemartin.org/update/14.3-Sup ... eeding.pdf

Here is PMCA's story of training their martins to eat egg:
http://www.purplemartin.org/update/Supp ... g11(3).pdf

Here is New Jersey landlord Stephen Pendino's story of saving his colony by feeding crickets and egg after he noticed they were weak:
http://purplemartin.org/update/12(3)NJSupFeed.pdf

Good luck to you, Mary

[kimball911]

We've had 6" of rain in about 10-14 days and I had to supplemental feed. I keep crickets on hand throughout the Martin season just for this purpose. I ended up feeding 3 days in a row. I just place the crickets on their porch and they will dive right in. Maybe you could get some crickets or more meal worms and start feeding right away. Keep trying.

[Sigundo]

I've not heard of them attacking adult birds, but the Grackles method of baby bird control here is to sever their heads, so that would be right up their alley.

Many times cats are blamed for the deaths, because the heads are removed, but Grackles do it also. They don't play with the birds first though, so its usually a bit quicker but same end result.

No way to know for sure, and like I said, I've never seen them take an adult bird down, just the younger ones, so for what its worth. If it was me, I'd probably shoot them and paint their beaks yellow, but of course that would be illegal and slightly silly.

[John Miller]

I don't think this is weather related. We've had several days of rain, but not continuous and very mild temperatures.

I'd look to other causes. Occasionally martins are injured in aluminum crescent openings during fighting, but this tends to occur a little earlier in the season when ASY birds are sorting out compartments. Still, I know that Steve Kroenke has reported seeing martins flying badly after struggling to get out of an aluminum crescent. (They learn to shimmy out, but under stress of fighting or fleeing from a predator may try to go straight out.) It doesn't happen often, but if you've switched this year to aluminum cresents, it's something to consider.

John Miller

[Kyle Gregoire]

Im just guessing but could it be pesticide or poison related?

[John Miller]

Kyle

Pesticides was my other consideration.

I hope this landlord can do some detective work.

John Miller

[Louise Chambers]

Do you know where your martins go to drink? There was a case of martins dying from botulism after drinking from a small pond where insufficient aeration and other conditions allowed botulism spores to multiply in the water. The martins became ill after drinking from the pond. Nestlings didn't get botulism but starved after their parents died.

This is kind of a long shot, but one of the symptoms that a bird is infected with botulism is a limp neck. You could phone your state wildlife agency and tell them about the birds, and they might pick up a few and test them. Keep dead birds in ziplock bags in the refrigerator, avoid freezing them. Keep a few freshly dead, not older ones.

If your martins are drinking from a larger pond, lake, river, etc, - anything with a current or adeqate inflow/outflow, botulism is a less likely culprit.

Louise

[jonkertb]

do you have any large windows that reflect a beautiful sky? could they be flying into a large glass window? if you have a large window/s look for little clumps of feathers on the glass and it could be they are flying into "sky" that is as hard as glass.....I've seen this with other birds...:>(

[Guest]

We actually have only had two die, (which is two to many), the third one was the one I had feed the meal worms to and I put it back in the nest to keep the stress level down. she flew out again and died. We have had about 10 inches of rain this month so far and daytime temps. in the upper 50's, that followed a very dry winter, most ponds were dried up until this rain. so I suppose they could have been watering out of a stagnate pond.
I don't think there has been any spraying of pesticides in our area, with all the rain it would have been a waste for the farmers to spray.
I am thinking it was two young birds that were not experienced enough to forage for food under bad conditions. I have hoisted up, just under their roosting pole a platform with meal worms in it. The rain is supposed to let up tomorrow and hopefully warm up and get the bugs flying again.
Thanks to everyone, I appreciate your responses.

[Mary Dawnsong]

Hi,

I'm relieved to hear you haven't lost too many birds and are doing supplemental feeding.

Cold weather is not the only cause of martin starvation.
PMCA and other sources tell us that the biggest threat to martin populations is long spells of nearly continuous rain that occur during summer months. Often this type of weather is associated with tropical storms.

Warm weather starvation owing to rain is a bigger problem for martins than early season cold weather-related starvation. That's because early season starvation kills only the early arriving ASY birds. Starvation during warmer months kills both ASY and SY and can devastate a local population of martins for years. Tropical Storm Agnes rained on Pennsylvania for most of June, 1972 and wiped out their martin population. The Carolinas had significant martin population loss from tropical storms in the 1990's.

The 10-day forecast for my area shows a good chance of rain every day. Even if it doesn't rain all day, that kind of weather over an extended period can weaken and eventually starve martins. This is especially true if there is no sunshine to dry insect wings and enable them to fly between showers -or- if the rain is so heavy it actually kills the insects -or- if wind is so strong that insects cannot fly -or- if heavy fog fills the interlude between showers.

Coincidental with the predicted rainy weather is the migration of subadults into my area. Migrating martins often arrive in a weakened condition and can starve in just a couple of days. The two or three birds you lost may have been recent arrivals who simply could not survive the stress of migration combined with low food supply.

So, I expect to be feeding scrambled egg over the next 10 days as needed. I also just ordered 4000 crickets in case some of my new birds have no experience with supplemental feeding. It is easier for them to learn with crickets than with egg.

Good luck for the rest of the season,
Mary

[Guest]

Moresident,
Curious! Yea we've had rain, but lots of opportunities for martins to forage. I'm over here in Marshfield, about 20 miles from you. I've not seen any stressed martins. My martins are just fine. They are spending a lot of time foraging. I'm watching them right now as I've got nest cams in the gourds of two of my 4 pair. I did a nest check this afternoon and no eggs yet. My first ASY arrived April 1st and has been with an ASY female since April 10th.

[Jim Ray]

The weather you describe is conducive to botulism or "limber neck". My experience as a biologist with botulism is as follows. Botulism in waterfowl typically starts out with fluctuating waterlevels. You'll have declining waterlevels due to drought, resulting in the death of aquatic vegetation and especially invertebrates. A rainy period can flood this matter, and the process of decay uses oxygen resulting in the aenerobic conditions that the botulism thrives in. I live and work in a region that is famous for botulism problems in waterfowl. I'm not that familiar with the doses birds can get from simply drinking the water. Where waterfowl get in trouble is that a few birds die, and they're rotting carcasses results in fly's and thus maggots. The waterfowl consume the maggots, which are concentrated "pills" of botulism. If botulism is involved, I don't know how you can stop the problem. The birds have to quit drinking there, or the aenerobic conditions have to end. This usually takes draining the water source, minimizing fluctuating water levels, getting rid of any source of decay (like carcasses), or the return of cool temperatures in the fall.