I was disappointed by the number of birds that came into roost at my site last night. I had fewer birds than I had the night before. In fact fewer birds than I had last week. I am down to 2 males and to females now.
But! This morning, I was looking at my birds and the 2 males started singing loudly and wing flapping and looking up. Suddenly a female bird flew in. She checked out several gourds nervously as the males followed her around. Finally she perched where I could get a really good look at her with my binoculars and she had a almost pure white crissum with just a few small thin lines of brown on the quills of some of the crissum feathers. It was a female SY! She continued to explore with the males after her till one of the ASY females had enough and flew out of her gourd and attacked the young lady! I guess she didn't want the SY distracting her male. After a few minutes the SY female flew off. Not sure if she will be back or is headed north. But she is the first I have seen. I haven't put her on the SY report since they only want males reported.
Good to see the SY's but I hope that doesn't mean there won't be more ASYs on the way. I have a lot few birds this year than last. I was hoping for a nice increase this year.
Oh well. Everyone enjoy your martins!
James
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