I've been lucky this year to need additional housing. I added a 4-gourd rack last weekend. An adult male quickly attracted a young female during the week.
A good sign this weekend was multiple young females have arrived and seem interested in the new housing.
Also a first sub-adult male appears to be moving-in as of yesterday (4/14) . It was difficult to identify him as male, I could only see some 'freckles' on his chin, and they were mostly only on the left side of his chin. Also a spot on his underside, but way off to one side and hard to see unless looking from the right angle.
But when a young lady visited his front perch, young Freckles sang her a song and added the telltale click-click-clicks to make positive ID as a sub-adult male.
Unfortunately, with the expansion to a total of 22 gourds, the large crowds of martins in the air have increased hawk pressure to well above previous years! The last 3-4 years I might have seen the local Coopers hawk once a day (on a weekend day when I'm looking nearly all-day long).
For the first time yesterday I saw 2 hawks at once, attacking from different angles. All-told, I saw at least 6 attacks yesterday. This morning one of the Coopers hawks surprised me and 2-3 martins perched on the large gourd rack - all the sudden martins were flying and the hawk was on the back-side of the rack!!! I think it investigated one of the two decoys, fortunately it left empty-handed.
Overall though, the year is off to a great start! I'll keep you all posted, and please keep-up the good work - I always enjoy reading everyone's updates and comments.
BW
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