More Photos Of My Purple Martin Colony

[Steve Kroenke]

More Photos Of My Purple Martin Colony

This year I took MANY pictures of the purple martins at my new colony site in northwest Louisiana. Here are some random pictures. The first photo shows my Lone Star gourd rack with natural gourds that maximize vertical/horizontal depth and my Lone Star Goliad house. The second photo shows various gourd racks with martins in attendance. The third photo is one of a purple martin family assembly site. In this case, a pair of ASY martins fledged their six youngsters from a natural gourd and assembled them on the dead limb of a relatively short sweet gum tree several hundred feet from my colony. The picture shows Mom and her six youngsters. Dad would not let me photograph him and he was out hunting for food. The fourth photo is a kill picture showing how deadly great horned owls can be to martin fledglings that roost in the open on exposed gourd racks or house perches. The photo shows plucked fledgling feathers on the lawn under my neighbor?s housing. You will also see a larger whitish feather that the owl lost while he/she plucked the martin. Great horned owls killed MANY martin fledglings this year in both our colonies and their kills littered our closely mowed lawns. And the final picture is a re-post. It shows my martin colony exploding into action to prepare for battle with a deadly male Cooper?s hawk that killed NUMEROUS martin fledglings this year in our colonies. He was appearing high in the sky and looking for vulnerable martin fledglings. (He is not in the photo.) His mate was worse and she often killed several fledglings a day. The parent martins mobbed the hawks but their attempts to chase the hawks away were futile.

Steve

[Donnie Hurdt MN]

Speaking of closley mowed lawns, how do your martins react when you mow under your houses?

[Steve Kroenke]

Hey,

When my yard was first mowed, the martins would flush for a short distance and then re-assemble at their nests. The newer arrivals were more ?skittish?. After a while, the martins became more accustomed to the lawn mowing routine under the housing and some of the martins would just ignore the riding lawnmower as it meandered through my colony. If your housing is lower down, then that may result in the martins bolting more frequently from their nests when people mow underneath. Also, martins will become more accustomed to people if you are often around your housing and they begin to view you as a non-threat. In this situation, the martins often return quickly to their nests as you pass by while mowing.

Steve

[John Atteberry]

When I first mowed the grass under their houses and gourds, next to the lake, They flew away and came back! Then they would sit on the houses and gourds and watch while I was under their houses and wouldn't fly anymore! They were tamed really quick! When I weedwack around the lake and their houses, they really would watch as to say thank you for getting weeds down! Thanks John!