Now What? Please assist.

[DML]

June 9 - 2 eggs. June 13- 3 more eggs. All in one gourd. Completing weekly nest checks, kill a sparrow every now & them. I catch them with the trap. Today a tremendous amount of activity. 5-6 birds flying around. Singing and always seems to be one male fighting. With this SE Ohio heat I don’t want to cause a problem with another nest check. Last year was my second year with ZERO results. Martins come, but continuing fighting, it must have scared my prospects away. Year before was year #1. I had three eggs & three fledged. A lot of different factors here, but basically I am flying by the seat of my pants. I really don’t know what I am looking at. Please assist.

[C.C.Martins]

Well sounds like normal activity to me. They fight all the time but its not all that serious to result in certain death or abandoning. If a bird successfully fought off and defended his territory to the point of driving them away, I can see that too especially a particularly strong male who is defending a whole side of a house.
Looks and sounds serious, once I could swore a bird was dying in a gourd...it does happen but its a rare enough event.
How many cavities are you offering and what type?

At this point if you want to hold off nest checks by all means do so.

Last, congrats on those eggs!!!!
Tom

[DML]

June 9 - 2 eggs. June 13- 3 more eggs. All in one gourd. Completing weekly nest checks, kill a sparrow every now & them. I catch them with the trap. Today a tremendous amount of activity. 5-6 birds flying around. Singing and always seems to be one male fighting. With this SE Ohio heat I don’t want to cause a problem with another nest check. Last year was my second year with ZERO results. Martins come, but continuing fighting, it must have scared my prospects away. Year before was year #1. I had three eggs & three fledged. A lot of different factors here, but basically I am flying by the seat of my pants. I really don’t know what I am looking at. Please assist.
[/quote]

[brent]

Looks like a Tree Swallow to me. Brent

[C.C.Martins]

Yep. That explains the fighting, its keeping the martins away.

[DML]

D2EE9DCE-3C41-4698-8343-84D63B5C2B42.jpeg

Barn swallow eggs? So I have failed another year.

(435 KiB) Not downloaded yet

[scottfreidhof]

Enjoy those tree swallows for now - they are wonderful birds to have around the yard. It is probably too late to expect purple martins to nest at this point in June anyway, although some curious visitors could show up anytime from nearby colonies. You can be ready for next spring by placing 2 or 3 bluebird nest boxes around your yard on separate poles. They can go up anytime between now and the end of next March. Tree swallows probably show up around your house in late March or early April. We don't live too far apart and tree swallows usually show up in my yard during the third week of March and nest building begins later in April. It is important to have more than one bluebird nest box in the yard because there will probably be multiple pairs of tree swallows and a pair of bluebirds competing for them. Give them enough to keep their attention away from your martin gourds.

[DML]

Thank you for your response from Morehead. Lot of kids in this area attend Morehead University, great school. I do have one bluebird house, I will get a couple more off the Amish here in Gallia. Killing sparrows is one thing, but I was not prepared for the TS and blue birds. The one blue bird does sit on the gourds without issue and goes into the nest 40’ from the gourds. This forum is a nice tool. I don’t know what made year 1 work without issue. Very hard and unforgiving learning curve.

[birdman in buckhead]

Just my 2 cents. I would not let the heat affect your nest checks at all. Putting up shade. lowering racks due to wind, putting early fledglings back in the nest, etc. Lately, I've lowered racks and opened gourds 2 - 3 times a day - only because it was necessary - and it didn't seem to bother the parent birds at all. Even with the racks 6 - 8 feet off the ground didn't stop the parent birds from carrying on their normal routine.

[defed]

It is probably too late to expect purple martins to nest at this point in June anyway, although some curious visitors could show up anytime from nearby colonies.

i don't think it's too late just yet. PMCA just got eggs on their nest cam site and mine haven't hatched yet (hopefully this wk), w/ another SY pair also hanging around. so i think there is still a little time up north.