No More Martins at Tulsa Roost

[Dick Sherry]

Went by the airport last evening, and there were not only no martins there but the starlings had cleared out as well. So they used it as their roost for about two months or a little longer. Hopefully the martins in this area will do better next year.

[Dave Reynolds]

Dick —- I never realized that the Martins would use a roost for two months.. That seems like a long time.. But I have never been close to a roost, so I didn’t have a clue... they would stay that long in one spot, waiting to go South..

Dave

[Dick Sherry]

Dave, I think the reason our local roosts have had birds for so long is that they have become stopover roosts for birds from farther north. We have had these type of roosts for nearly 30 years. From the early 1990's to around 2003, the martins used an auto bank (square block in size) as a jumbo roost, with possibly 300,000 or more each summer at its peak. I believe our local nesting birds had probably moved south by mid to late August, but birds from farther north kept using the roost well into September. It was at that site that we had 5 to 10 birds in early October one year.

Roosts seem to vary a lot from ones that are used for a short period of time by local-only birds to ones that are used for a much longer time by birds that have nested in areas very far away, but as they migrate south they mingle at feeding and resting areas during the day and follow the local birds to the roost they are using at night. I would love to know how they communicate this information to the other martins. There is a whole lot we will never figure out, but it is interesting to try.