Happy Ending...But Lessons Learned

[Oceangirl]

We put up our purple martin house this year around February 17th. It was our second PM home built at our current home. Last year, we had 3 babies fledge from one nest hole and were excited to experience this wonderful event again this year in a brand new home that my husband built.

Probably around two weeks after we put up the home (it has four cavities), we started seeing some interest. Two of the cavities ended up with residents; one on each side. Counting back from the dates of fledging, we think that the nest building was probably during the month of April, eggs probably laid around the middle of May and hatching around the end of May). Unfortunately, since we don’t have cameras, we don’t have an exact date of when the first egg was laid. We watched daily activity and speculated that around the end of May (30th or 31st) the first baby was hatched. We saw an increase in activity in both nest cavities of feeding. Then we started to see the babies poop being carried out by the parents.

On June 15th, we noticed on little bird trying to leave the nest and blocking the hole. He jumped out of the nest and landed on the ground. He could not fly. When my husband picked him up to put him back in the nest, we noticed he had tiny bugs (mites) all around his little body. The bottom corners of the nest box looked like mold the infestation was so severe. However, once he was back in nest, he jumped back out again. Then another little PM also jumped out. It was late in the day, so my husband put them both back in and screwed in a long screw across the entry so they could not jump again during the evening. Each time he was on the ladder, he was dive bombed by the parents (what are you doing with my babies!) Thanks to this forum, I inquired about mite infestation and found out that we should clean out the nest and put “poultry dust” in the house to kill the mites. So the next day, hubby lowered the pole as much as possible (we don’t have a pulley system, it’s just a two part pole), climbed up on a ladder and took down the house. He moved the sweet little babies (one cavity had three living babies, two dead and the other cavity had 3 live babies) and cleaned out the nest thoroughly while I went to get a bag of pine needles to create a new nest. He put the “poultry dust” underneath the nesting material and in the corners, the placed the pine needles to create a new nest. Then the babies were put back in.

And the anxiety began! Each day we were concerned about the babies and my husband got really good at going up a ladder, getting dive bombed, and unscrewing the rooftop and inspecting the nest. We did have one fatality on one side after the nest check which hubby removed. We started to see an increase in the parents’ activity to feed their babies in both nests and eager chirping from the babies to get fed. The frequent nest checks revealed some mites, but nothing compared to what was cleaned out.
Then on June 26th in the morning, we saw one baby on the right side of the nest box with almost his entire body out and a minute later, he flew out of the nest (unfortunately, we did not witness this). We believe the other followed shortly thereafter. We woke on June 27th to an empty PM home. We guess the other three on the left side must have fledged sometime early that morning. But wow, what a stressful 11 days with almost daily nest checks and concern about infestation and/or jumpers, or deceased birds.

Hubby said several times, “I’m not doing this again next year, its too stressful”! But in the end, it was a successful year with a total of 5 birds added to the PM population. I want to thank all of those in this forum for your continued expertise and answers to my questions. We never realized the importance of 1) the ability to raise and lower the box easily, 2) a house that has easy access for nest checks 3) the importance of being pro-active with nest infestations, 4) the huge benefit of having a camera in each nest to check on the babies and 5) pest guards (although we didn’t have an issue this year, but did last year). IF we do this again next year, we will know in advance to incorporate all of this sage advice, not only for the birds, but for our own sanity – lol. I hope our experience will be helpful to anyone new to the forum and how much effort is required in being a good purple martin landlord.

But being a novice, there are still a few questions for the experts:
1. Last year, after fledging, we noticed the PM’s would fly around their home for at least a week before they would leave for good. This year, they have not flown by at all (at least not that we have seen). Can anyone provide any clues to this behavior?
2. Where do the PM’s go after they have all fledged? We have not heard any of them flying around. I assume the fledglings are not ready to fly south yet, but they have all disappeared.
Thanks again to everyone that has taken time to read this and to everyone that has helped along the way!

[scottfreidhof]

My experience has been the same as yours. Some years I will get lucky and one or two family groups will return to the gourds each evening for about a week or less. Then some years the birds just disappear after fledging. As far as where they go, I noticed one year a group of recent fledglings perched together on a power line about a half mile from the house. Adults were bringing food to them on that exposed perch. That ridgetop location was wider and therefore more open than around my house. The cow pastures and hay fields were larger and all that extra space provided more of a safer vantage point to see incoming hawks. I have observed the same behavior with other swallows. One memory that comes to mind was a crew of recent barn swallow fledglings all lined up on a dead branch hanging out over the river. Adults were feeding them at that location. So maybe adult swallows move their fledglings to more open and safer locations where the bugs are plentiful.

[Oceangirl]

My experience has been the same as yours. Some years I will get lucky and one or two family groups will return to the gourds each evening for about a week or less. Then some years the birds just disappear after fledging. As far as where they go, I noticed one year a group of recent fledglings perched together on a power line about a half mile from the house. Adults were bringing food to them on that exposed perch. That ridgetop location was wider and therefore more open than around my house. The cow pastures and hay fields were larger and all that extra space provided more of a safer vantage point to see incoming hawks. I have observed the same behavior with other swallows. One memory that comes to mind was a crew of recent barn swallow fledglings all lined up on a dead branch hanging out over the river. Adults were feeding them at that location. So maybe adult swallows move their fledglings to more open and safer locations where the bugs are plentiful.

Thanks for your reply! I guess birds can be as different as people! There is a levee not far from our house and a power line. Perhaps they are going over there; but it's so funny because I don't hear any PM's in the sky at all anymore! There is another house just one block away that has a much larger PM house that has been active for at least several years. We walked by his house the other day and we couldn't spot any PM's over there either. We do have quite a few of ospreys and hawks in our area; so maybe they just felt it wasn't safe to stick around. I had no idea the parents continued to feed them once fledged. How cute

We are still seeing some swallows around at dusk; but since we are in a master planned community, we don't see many. We have a park about 10 miles from us that has a swallow home in the park and they have wide open spaces.