Beautiful day in the high 60's at Hammonasset. We brought nesting material (pine needles) to put in nesting compartments, and more scrambled eggs and eggshells in case there were enough martins to try to teach the emergency feeding techniques (there were too few martins available to work on the training)
Every nest box received a handful of pine needles, made to be as bowl-like as possible (using our fist and twisting motion to form cup). Although it is too early to expect any real martin nests, we did find several house sparrow nests, one with eggs. This is not good news, the nests were removed and we attempted
to trap the sparrows, but they won today. We will be back.
We did realize that the crows have figured out that we are delivering food to the martins, just as we were pulling away, the crows high tailed it to the feeding trays and helped themselves to the scrambled eggs....ahh who can blame them, the breakfast buffet!
Every nest box received a handful of pine needles, made to be as bowl-like as possible (using our fist and twisting motion to form cup). Although it is too early to expect any real martin nests, we did find several house sparrow nests, one with eggs. This is not good news, the nests were removed and we attempted
to trap the sparrows, but they won today. We will be back.
We did realize that the crows have figured out that we are delivering food to the martins, just as we were pulling away, the crows high tailed it to the feeding trays and helped themselves to the scrambled eggs....ahh who can blame them, the breakfast buffet!