Morning everyone,
Adam Troyer and I went up to the Erie roost last night. We spent an hour or two at Beach 11, where the martins use to stage prior to dark. With two boxes playing the daytime chatter or dawnsong, we were able to attract 400-500 martins onto the phone lines. We saw about 5 birds with bands and Adam has some of the complete auxiliary band numbers.
We got to the South Pier around sunset and did not see a single martin where a thousand or two birds have been roosting in the past several years. It's possible they arrived there before we got there, but Adam did not see any birds that appeared to be martins in the cattails surrounding this several acre pond.
I occasionally see some martins flying over here, but it's very quiet here at Pymatuning Reservoir, Linesville, PA.
The large roost that was at the head waters of Presque Isle Bay has moved northeast of here, possibly into New York onto private land, so the location has been kept confidential.
Hope everyone had a great martin year.
Erie Roost
-
bwenger
- Posts: 1059
- Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2005 7:24 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania/Espyville/Pymatuning Reservoir Area
- Martin Colony History: Taking care of 11 active public colonies and trying to start two more in northwestern PA. Also attempting to restart another one in southwestern PA, in Collier Township's Hilltop Park. In 2017, not sure what happened but the ASY male returned and then a couple of weeks later he was gone. It could have been weather related. No other birds showed up. I had a starling nesting at the Public site that I had trouble getting rid of.
In 2018, we fledged 629 martins at all of the sites.
Bill Wenger
Building the Purple Martin population one bird at a time!
Building the Purple Martin population one bird at a time!