Found hurt Martin wonder what happen???

Martin man RI · Sun May 07, 2006 8:56 pm

Hi folks
Kind of have a problem and wonder if you landlords can help me this: saturday i found a female martin at my colony the weird thing was she
had no feathers on her skull and the skull seemed raw she weak and could
fly but not far she just sat on the gourds while the rest of the birds were flying about. My question to season Crescent super gourd landlords did
she have a problem getting out of the super gourd and just continue to bang
her head on the inside of the metal porch or was she attacked somewhere
else and just came to my site to rest and pass on sadily she died the next
day she was found dead in the gourd weird to Martins dont nest here for
another four weeks i wonder if she flew in from a southern area????
There are no starlings and no HOSP at this site and no martin nest to early
could another female martin do this or male? Please help me to understand
this loss. thanks ray in RI

starling shooter · Mon May 08, 2006 6:57 am

head injury sounds like a starling. Starlings can get in cresents...I've had to remove a couple that were geting in Troyer horizontal cresentts. They can appear in no time.

I got a call from a landlord who found a dead martin under his rack with no apparent injuries and found another a day later with a injured wing. Doesn't sound like a typical predator. He has a gourd rack with 100% occupancy and I wonder if it could be over males battling for the cavaties.

John Miller · Mon May 08, 2006 8:45 am

When the head area is missing a big patch of feathers, she was probably pecked severely. Two different possiblilities. Male house sparrows sometime use their vise-like bills to pull out patches of feathers. Years ago I found a male on the ground with the back of it's head pecked raw from a sparrow. Since there are no sparrows at your site, maybe this happened elsewhere. The other possibility is fighting with another female. The pecked bird may have been hung up in a SREH opening, with her head stuck inside for a long period where another female, also inside, might have pecked away at her.

John Miller