Wing entrapment

[steve r]

Anybody had any problems with the BO11s yesterday i had a female stuck in a SREH. When I lowered the housing to release her it didn't aper that she had her wings traps only she was stuck. The sad part is she had been like this all day as I only noticed it when I returned from work, and the male had been stuck inside all day and had been pecking on her to get out (not sure if she is going to make it or not) also sitting on 6 eggs which could put me to loose 7 birds. This is the first time I have every had a problem with a SREH and have used them for many years

[~Ray~Gingerich]

I had one stuck in a round hole yesterday, got the rack half way down and the bird freed itself

[akp]

Interesting you mention this gourd in particular. I have 24 of them and they are all new at my rapidly growing colony.

I noticed the other day a male pulling out the pine needles. I didn't think much of it at first, but then noticed the gourd was shaking. I had two females trapped in the gourd. They weren't trapped due to wing entrapment, but were trapped due to pushing the pine needles in front of the opening. I assume the male was trying to help free them.

I have several more males than females at my site, so things are getting pretty crazy. Lots of fighting. Guess they got chased in there and pushed the needles up in front of the opening.

The Bo 11 does have a shallow bottom. Doesn't take much material to bring it up to opening level.

[Louise Chambers]

Martins do a lot of fighting over compartments, mates, etc in the early season. When we see a gourd shaking, it's because there are two males or two females fighting over that particular gourd. They are usually so focused on the fight that we have slowly lowered gourd racks and removed the birds (we saw via nest cam that one female had a geolocator on, and we needed to retrieve it).

I think a lot of wing entrapments, maybe almost all of them, occur during these fights, which can be quite prolonged. Other fights and entrapments result from subadult males snooping around.

While these behaviors are happening, landlords can help by being alert and checking all entrances visually twice a day, if possible. There's no need to break up fights, but keep an eye out for entrapments. edit: using wing guards can help!

The males are pretty hard on the females this time of year - we've all seen how the females get chased and harassed and sometimes injured. Not much we can do about that except once again keep an eye out for grounded birds.

[flyin-lowe]

Steve
Your title says wing entrapment but in your description you said her wings were not stuck. How was she stuck if it wasn't buy her wings? Just curious as I have never heard of a bird getting stuck in an entrance unless it was a wing entrapment.

[Michael Sanford ~ OK]

I've had martins stuck in every housing type I have ever offered. It's just the nature of the beast. When they fight for cavities and mates it's going to happen regardless of the entrance type. There have been folks on here trying different things to try and prevent it. A search should reveal some of those strategies being employed by other landlords.

[Scott D.- La]

There are more entrapments than just the wing. There is body wedging entrapments and toenail entrapments. Caulk any suspect areas where a toenail could get caught and upgrade to the tunnels with the wing entrapment guards or make them yourself from 1 1/2 conduit straps. There is plenty information posted on this subject, click on my name and find them if your interested.

[Peggy Riley]

After adding the conduit clamps last year and installing new tunnels with the wing entrapment guard I have not had any entrapments AT ALL.

I will eventually replace the tunnels that I worked on with the mfg. tunnels. While I used Scott D's method I am not very good at making things that last!

Out of 92 compartments 76 have tunnels with guards.

Peggy