There are always questions and debate about the best type of housing for our Purple Martins. Landlords that have a thriving colony know that martins will accept many conditions and types of housing once established. It then becomes about productivity of the colony and ease of management. Number of pairs, eggs laid, how many young are produced and how many hatchlings survive to fledge. There is only one way to get an idea of the productivity of your colony. Nest Checks.
I use a reporters notebook to record my weekly nest check data.
A typical Purple Martin nest on left. after young are transferred to new bedding on the right.
weekly nest check data is transferred to Martin watch sheets to send to PMCA.
I have been on both sided of the debate whether to do nest checks or not. Early on I did not want to disturb my newly acquired martins. It took me many years of trying before I attracted my first pair and I didn't want to rock the boat. I did however over come my hesitation those first years and using a flashlight and telescoping mechanics mirror would lower my natural gourd housing and inspect through the round openings to count eggs and those first hatchlings. After parents began feeding I did not continue checks for fear of scaring off my martins. This early data, and end of season clean out was all I relied on to estimate my yearly numbers.
As my colony grew those first few years, advances in Martin management brought such innovations as starling resistant openings and access ports to natural gourds. I would collect empty gallon mayo jars from restaurants and search out 4 inch wide plastic jars of any type in order to convert the gourds I grew into the high tech Martin house that is now represented by its plastic form. Nest checks became a weekly part of my colony management. Accurate numbers of the productivity of my colony gave me pleasure that I was doing all the right things in making my colony strong and the annual submission of my Martinwatch data gave me special feeling of accomplishment.
It was after I became steadfast about nest checks that I realized how hard young martins have it. The healthiest nestlings one week could be dead or completely missing the nest week. The cause of such events are always mysterious and have to be reasoned out. Fortunately this is the exception most seasons, but the disappearance of one or two nestlings from a clutch is a normal occurrence in many cavities and is all but expected. The larger the colony the more likely for these disappearances to go unnoticed, unless one is conducting regular nest checks. Relying on egg count, or hatch count is not going to give you any idea of the productivity of your colony. Small young that die in the nest are often disintegrate if not removed from the nest by parents, and older young that die can easily go undetected at the end of season clean out. To have an accurate idea of the young that are fledging from your colony you have to be doing regular nest checks and keeping records.
Are nest checks a required duty of a Martin landlord? I would say no, with a big BUT. If you want to experience a new level of landlording, nest checks provide a landlord with a satisfaction that they are doing all they can to help their colony. Conducting regular nest checks will open your eyes to the tough life Purple Martins have and give an appreciation for the gift of life around us. If I Had not committed to doing nest checks I would not have had reason to develop the ChirpyNest system.
For 2019 if not already doing so, make a commitment to doing nest checks at your colony. Keep records. Make notes of the experience. Nest checks take a small amount of time and commitment. The extra effort is well worth it, the knowledge gained is great and the satisfaction of increasing the productivity of your colony is unattainable any other way.