Purple Martin update

I checked the Purple Martin nest today. The babies are between four and six days old. They're really growing quickly! Here's a picture. Notice the dragonfly in the mouth of the one furthest to the right.


I also took some video of the parents going in and out of the gourd. Some slow motion of them doing both. It's pretty cool to see how graceful they are!

Purple Martin Hatching Day!!!

Knowing the Purple Martin eggs were to hatch this weekend, I went out this morning and hoped I'd see some chicks in the nest. I wasn't disappointed! Below are pictures from my first ever Purple Martin hatching in housing I provided for them.




Needless to say, I'm very excited about this! I'm looking forward to watching them grow and fledge successfully. If all the eggs hatch today and tomorrow, we are looking at a fledging date of of June 16 or 17.

In other news, the Eastern Bluebirds haven't started their second nest yet. It shouldn't be too long. I have seen the parent bluebirds busy catching insects, but haven't located the juveniles yet. I have an idea of where they are, but haven't actually seen them. It won't be long before they're coming to the water in my birdbath in my backyard.

A Swallow-tailed Kite flew over yesterday giving me some great looks at him. I ran inside to get a video camera, but by the time I found it and got outside again, he was just going behind the trees across the street. When will I learn this time of year to have a video camera handy so I can get some shots of him?

Nesting Updates

I checked the bluebird nest yesterday morning and one of the five had left the box already. When I checked it yesterday afternoon, all five of the chicks had left. I always have mixed feelings on fledging day. On one hand, I'm really happy to know there are five more bluebirds out there and a second brood can get started. On the other hand, I'll miss checking on them and taking pictures to post here. Hopefully in about three weeks we'll have more eggs in the nest.

I took the camera out to the gourd rack to take pictures of the complete clutch today. It's interesting to me that they are using willow oak leaves as their green leaves. There is a big pecan tree about 60 ft. away from the gourd rack, but for some reason they're flying over to the woods and picking off willow oak leaves. Anyway, here are the pictures.



While I was mowing today, a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher flew overhead. That's the first one of the year for me. That was fun to see.

Spring Migration 2009

Spring migration is winding down. Over the past few weeks we've had strong southerly winds at the surface which help the migrants fly right over us. Those that do stop only stop for a few hours to refuel and then take off again. The past two weeks that I went out, there were very few migrants to be seen. In fact, the woods were very quiet, with the exception of the hordes of mosquitoes. On May 1, the mosquitoes were so bad they literally chased me into the house. They weren't quite as bad on May 8, but the birds weren't there. If I had been a migrating bird and stopped here for a little bit of food, I wouldn't have stayed long either with as many mosquitoes as I would have had to deal with!

I ran a report of my spring numbers on the property. I ran the report from March 1 to May 8. I saw a total of 112 species. Here are the migrants I saw:

Swallow-tailed Kite, Mississippi Kite, Broad-winged Hawk, Swainson's Hawk, Upland Sandpiper, Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Acadian Flycatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, White-eyed Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, Warbling Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Purple Martin, Tree Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Bank Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Barn Swallow, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, Wood Thrush, Gray Catbird, Blue-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Orange-crowned Warbler, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Cerulean Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Worm-eating Warbler, Ovenbird, Kentucky Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler, Canada Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, Summer Tanager, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Dickcissel, Orchard Oriole, Baltimore Oriole

It was a good spring for me on the property. I got 23 species of warblers (including Yellow-rumped which are winter residents, but do start changing into breeding plumage while here), both tanagers, both orioles, both grosbeaks and all of the swallows. I was a little disappointed in some of the species I missed, though. So far I haven't seen a Painted Bunting. Some of the warblers I missed include Louisiana Waterthrush, Northern Waterthrush, Bay-breasted Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler and Nashville Warbler. I didn't see a Veery, Chuck-will's-widow or Common Nighthawk (yet). There are always some misses every spring.

On a positive note, the Purple Martins have laid four eggs in the gourd. They laid the last one on Saturday, May 9 and the female started incubating that day. With the eggs taking 14 - 18 days to hatch, I have projected a hatching day for Sunday, May 24. I'll start checking them on the 22nd. I'm so excited to see them nesting with me!

The Eastern Bluebird chicks are doing well. All five of them are growing quickly. They should fledge on May 14 or 15. Then it will be onto the second brood! Here's a six-minute video I shot of the parents coming to feed the babies, and then of the babies at the end of the video. I actually shot an hour of video and was able to condense it to six minutes!

Eggs!!!

I checked the gourd where the Purple Martins had been building their nest and there were two eggs in it! The first one was laid yesterday. It will be interesting to see how many eggs they lay being SY birds. At this point, I'm just excited to see eggs in the nest! I'll take some pictures when they've finished laying all the eggs.

The bluebird chicks are doing well. I checked them on Monday and they're getting their feathers in slowly. I need to check them again today and make sure they don't have any parasites affecting them.