Has anyone had pms with metal in beaks?

[lwilg]

2 years ago I found a dead adult martin under the electric line with a piece of lightweight aluminum about one eight inch wide and one half inch long wrapped around one side of the lower beak. Yesterday while looking through my binoculars I noticed an unattached SY male with exactly the same kind of metal wrapped around the lower beak. I could not tell where the metal came from and it is too lightweight to be a piece from an aluminum house. Has anyone ever seen anything like that?

[Laverne]

No, I have never seen such a thing.

Sounds like foul play I don't like it!

You don't say what part of the country you are in. Could this be something used by "bad" people trying to discourage a roost?

[Fred Kaluza~MI]

Well, despite some people's opinions that Martins are "Angelic" and "Perfect" birds, they do occasionally pick up odd scraps like paper clips, glass fragments and other things. Perhaps out of curiousity or as a "present" to show their mates. Sometimes this junk winds up in their nests or dropped underneath it if they can't get it in the entrance. Shiny stuff generally tends to get bird's interest. These metal scraps sound like the result of a machining process or perhaps are the byproduct of a mechanical installation somewhere. Quite likely, the Martins are attracted by these "Curly Q's", stick their beak into it, and the sharp edges and "springy-ness" of the coiled "chips" are enough to stay on the beak and prevent the bird from feeding. Just my thoughts but perhaps you know of some places around where this junk might be found. Another question...Do Martins seek out gravel and "grit" for their digestive processes? Fred in Michigan

[Guest]

Fred: Yes they do seek out grit. You'd be suprised at the use you would get out of a platform feeder with crushed eggshells in it. My martins constantly take the little chips to their babies as well as ingest them themselves.
The shells also provide calcium. This calcium is essential especially for the females who lay eggs. The building blocks for their own eggs have to come from somewhere. The females in my colony flock to the tray during egg laying.
I have read this also helps to prevent females from becoming egg bound and dying, as a lack of calcium contributes to this possibility.

[DAKdude]

This year in one of the Martin Houses I manage one pair brought in a paper clip, a screw and a cigarette butt in the nest building process. So they do pick up some unusual things.

James

[lwilg]

Thanks for the feedback on pms picking up metal and other objects. I have never seen such stuff in nests in the few years that I have had martins. I know they are seldom on the ground except during nest building, so I was surprised to see this for the second time. We do have several manufacturing companies that could very well provide pms access to pieces of aluminum. I just hope it doesn't kill. He seemed fine tonight, so maybe he will just be a modern pm with some body decorative hardware!

Larry

[klcretired]

lwilg,
I also agree with everyone that answered your post, at one of our North Texas Landlord meetings last year one of our PM landlord's had a Hand full of metal, Nails,brads,barbed wire,etc,etc that was collected out of some of his PM nests....I could not believe what i was seeing ,but it's true.Nothing ever ceases to amaze me anymore about those bird's.

[Guest]

Hi K.C., yes I do so agree with what you said about not being surprised at what one can find in the nests. We found cigarette butts, a cartridge that went into a ball point pin, q tips galore, a piece of paper with a grocery list written on it, and luckily we got it,,but the round plastic seal that went on a plastic bottle top. so we will never be surprised at what these precious birds bring into the nest. I was so relieved that we got that bottle seal out of there. Had it gone over one of their bodies, they would not have been able to move and get out of the gourd. Just one more thing to prove that nest checks are indeed necessary. Yau'll have a Happy 4th