re: Purple Martin

With all this south wind they should be moving that way. Have a bunch flying all around high all week but nothing in even trying to go into my house. Already removing and shooting at sparrows tryin to nest in there.

I had a pair of scouts and they spent the night, I’m west of Shreveport.

I am thinking of starting a 4 to 8 house colony in my backyard. Looks like fun

Noticed they were in the boxes across the lake a couple of days ago. But if I was a Purple Martin, I'd spend the summer on one of the lakes in Wisconsin.

Purple martins have a unique call. Beautiful bird. Males dark, females lighter. Love to be near humans. We used to have them when we were kids. They used to dive bomb us on the swing set. Love to sit outside and listen to them cackle and love watching them tuck their wings in and plummet from the sky then stop on a dime landing on the house.

I always have sparrows, so much so that it motivated me to build a repeating trap. Just finished it Thursday. Put it out and I've caught 7 so far. Good luck!

Article on 2021 freeze deaths.

quote:

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Thousands of birds, including beloved purple martins, died in "The Great Texas Freeze" of 2021. A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution led by biologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, reveals not only the extent of the die-off—up to 27% of the birds' breeding population in Texas and Louisiana—but that recovery may take decades, and that we can expect weather-driven mass mortality events

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quote:

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With this unique trove of civilian-gathered data, the team discovered that the storms killed adult purple martins at up to 52% of the breeding sites monitored by citizen scientists across Texas and Louisiana.

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I have read other articles on it and the most surprising part, to me, was the fact that starvation is the bigger danger. Bugs don't fly during extended cold snaps. No food.

Funny you mention whistlers. First time I had 2 this morning as well.

For the second time at this house, the martins showed up in April. I guess my group just either arrives late, or chooses to start the nesting process late. Same arrival date as the red breasted grosbeaks.

As soon as a male tried to land this morning, two house sparrows attacked. That brought out the Sig Sauer, and 4 individuals, 3 hens and a drake, were swiftly fed to the turtles.