The 2019 purple martin season for our two colonies, mine and my neighbor Bob, in northwest Louisiana is ending. It has been a good year for the most part and probably between 1500 and 2000 martins have fledged so far with a few more to go before it all ends. We probably had over 500 pairs of martins nesting this season.
We had our usual problems with single SY male infanticide incidents during late April and through May, migrant Accipiter hawk and merlin attacks during March and mainly April, and now resident Cooper’s hawk predation on martin fledglings. Only one rat snake so far has been caught in a net trap and little evidence of great horned owl predation. Most starling issues eliminated BEFORE the martins arrived with my early starling trapping program. Others later on shot/trapped and our colonies were starling free. Only shot one male house sparrow back in March and no other problems with sparrows. No parasite problems such as mites found in the nests. Using 5% Sevin has done a great job keeping these pests under control. So a pretty good season so far!
Here are two photos of our now “lonely looking” martin colonies on July 18. We do have martins visiting in the mornings and still have some roosting. But I believe I have only about 15 pairs left with nestlings and some of these are getting ready to fledge any day now. Bob may have a few pairs left, too. The first photo is my colony composed of 17 systems, including 13 gourd racks and four Trendsetter houses, two of which have gourds underneath. Bob has 13 systems, including three gourd racks, five Trio Castles, three Lone Star Goliads, and two of Bob’s own aluminum systems.
