Purple Martin Forum

Dave,

We had 168 eggs laid. The weather when the SY laid eggs was great. So I don't think it was the temps. We lost 15 ASY birds to cold here in NW PA before the SY birds arrived, but the house with the most unhatched eggs was not open when the die off happened.

Julie

As our season drawers to a close I am sad to say we had 53 eggs that did not hatch. The last T 14 that we opened for the season had all the nests abandoned along with several nests in the other houses. Is it possible that the SY birds that built nests and laid eggs just did not incubate? We are on t...

As a follow up on this incident, when I did my nest check there were 9 eggs gone!

Since I have predator guards on my houses, I can only assume that it was the Martins themselves.

I guess I have a bad SY male. I have had a couple dead young that were just a couple of days old lying close to the entrance holes. I thought that perhaps it was the mother trying to remove a chick that did not survive. After fighting sterling sand sparrows I can't believe that I have to worry about...

Has any other Landlord witnessed a Martin eating a Martin egg?? This evening I was what I think was a SY male with a egg shell in its beak on a porch of my house. At first I thought it was just eating a shell of a recently hatched chick. That was until i saw the innards of the egg come out! (was usi...