3 Topics: Late Breeding? Hawks Attacks and Bluebird Massacre

[birdman in buckhead]

Greetings Fellow Landlords,

I'm happy to report 2023 has been a very good year here in north central Georgia. I think due in a large part to mild weather - almost ideal for the martins (and humans). Unlike 2022, there has been no extended heat wave. So far, we have had 96 fledgling and *4 more will be flying in about 2 weeks.

1) Most of the families have either already left the colony or are gone most of the day and come in at dusk to roost at night. There have been 2 SY males here for about a month that never found mates, but there were also no available units. Now that units are empty, it appears the 2 males are trying to attract females. There are also a few ASY males doing the same thing.

Question: Will martins breed and go through the entire nesting/egg laying process at this time? There's still plenty of good weather for this to happen, but it has never happened in the past.

*This was/is a very odd situation. After laying 5 eggs, the female would/could not go back into the house. The entrance is a standard 1-3/16" cresent hole that the female obviously had no trouble getting in and out of while building the nest and laying eggs! Then acted like some males do having trouble getting into a unit. I though the pair had abandonded the nest because there was no activity for about 3 - 4 weeks and the eggs remained in the nest as noted during nest checks. Then female and male started coming and going like they were feeding chicks, and sure enough the eggs had hatched! The eggs were laid the week of May 5th and did not hatch until mid-June! I suppose it's possible another pair took over the unit and laid different eggs, but this was never noted during weekly nest checks.

2) Hawk attacks have been on the rise the past 2 weeks - probably due to all of the martin chattering and chicks fledging. The hawks killed 2 martins a few days ago and ate them right under the martin housing. I feel awful about this happening, but I wasn't around to scare them off - the most effective beingan air horn. To my knowledge, hawks have only killed 3 martins this year, so I suppose it's an acceptable number, even though I hate losing even 1 martin to a hawk!

3) I have 4 blue bird houses mounted on top of a wooden fence that surrounds my backyard where the martin houses are located. Two days ago I found 3 dead bluebirds on the ground near their house. 2 of the birds were slightly dismembered. The 3rd was dead but intact. It appears that something killed the birds for no reason. The bluebird houses are enclosed except for the 1" entry hole. In my opinion, something forced the birds to come out, then caught and killed them. There are some sparrows around, but I've never seen any hostilities between them and the bluebirds. I've heard that hawks and owls will sit on top of a martin house or gourd and beat its wings to get the martins to come out. But a hawk or owl would have eaten the bluebirds - not killed them for "sport". Any ideas?