They're Back!!!
While Terry and I were at a Purple Martin conference in Pennsylvania, we received our first phone call from Ranger Russ at Hammonasset to tell us that our first martins had returned!
The next day we went to Hammo to open some of the houses so they could find shelter. The first martins back are called Scouts...they are the more experienced birds and they come by to "scout" out the housing situation and pick out their housing. We don't usually open the houses this early because they will be inundated with sparrow and possibly starlings, both invasive birds that wreak havoc on the martins. Most landlords that spoke at the workshop we attended suggested that opening some of the houses early encourages the martins to stay and makes managing the sparrows a reasonable task.
So the season has started, and we are already concerned. The weather has taken a turn for the worst, it has now snowed for 2 days and martins need dry weather over 50 degrees to catch flying insects. We know they are already depleted and tired from their trip up North. We are considering trying our new knowledge of emergency feeding sooner than we expected.
The next day we went to Hammo to open some of the houses so they could find shelter. The first martins back are called Scouts...they are the more experienced birds and they come by to "scout" out the housing situation and pick out their housing. We don't usually open the houses this early because they will be inundated with sparrow and possibly starlings, both invasive birds that wreak havoc on the martins. Most landlords that spoke at the workshop we attended suggested that opening some of the houses early encourages the martins to stay and makes managing the sparrows a reasonable task.
So the season has started, and we are already concerned. The weather has taken a turn for the worst, it has now snowed for 2 days and martins need dry weather over 50 degrees to catch flying insects. We know they are already depleted and tired from their trip up North. We are considering trying our new knowledge of emergency feeding sooner than we expected.