re: Purple Martin tracker - 2017

I need to get my act together and put up a house. My grandfather was, among other things, a purple martin fanatic. When we cleaned his house out we found calendars with details on purple martin activity at his house for 20-30 years or so. I don't remember what happened to them, but I need to find them.

He also documented how many quarts of blueberries, how many tomatoes, cucumbers, bushels of beans, gallons of pecans, and everything else he picked each day, along with how many squirrels and rabbits he killed. I'll be upset if I can't locate those calendars, or if someone threw them away.

I have given up on them, haven't had any in 10 years no matter what I try.

So, I've been working in my backyard all afternoon. My back neighbor had his house in the lowered position. Martins were flying around making noise. He comes out, cleans it and raises it. The Martins took less than 5 minutes to land on it. Cmsb

They are a native bird that is in decline and relies on human help to provide homes. Contrary to popular belief, they eat very few mosqitoes and actually eat other insects that eat mosquitoes.

With the warm winter we are having here in Middle Tennessee, it looks like the scouts are arriving earlier this year. I looked up the scout arrival map over the weekend and was surprised to see them already at the Tennessee River. I got my house up on Sunday. Fingers crossed as I didn't have good luck last year. I've taken down a tree to open the space up more, so we'll see.