After a week of wet cold snowy windy and down right nasty weather, all the while no martin sightings, two have returned. I believe these are the same as my first arrivals as they went to the same gourd C-2 as they did before the snap. Nothing like blue skies and purple Martins.
And of course KENTUCKY WILDCATS alive in the big dance.
A couple of the things I am studying this season :
1. Does a dark ChirpyNest interior make a cavity more attractive to the martins.
2. Will blocking off adjacent cavities,of the four compartment ChirpyNest, early in the season, prevent multiple cavity domination and eggs being laid in adjacent cavities.
Here I painted every other cavity of the four compartment ChirpyNest. Overall I painted about half of the ChirpyNest houses at my colony. I will be able to see if there is s preference as best building begins.
Here I blocked cavities between ones left open until the open cavities are claimed. During the last two years martins have laid eggs either accidentally or intentionally in one or more of the cavities above or below the brood cavity.
By blocking these I hope to prevent this and when SY birds arrive I plan to open. I will see how these two experiments go.
Finally got some dry weather on Friday. This is my 26 cavity rack on the three inch pole that was new in 2017. I use two of my Four compartment ChirpyNest houses and 18 of the first generation ChirpyNest singles on this rack. I will pre-nest the removable trays today and plug the openings until my martins return, then I’ll open a few until the larger numbers arrive. It could be any day.
Last year this rack fledged 23 Young from 8 active nests. An identical setup at Virginia Highlands Community College fledged 48 young from 16 active nests in its first year.
Im looking forward to 2018 season and to see how the ChirpyNest housing does for the other landlords that are going to be using it.
Gypsy is checking out a wren nest that was built over the winter in one of the units while in storage.
After a loss of martin numbers due to Owl disruptions I set out to totally re think, re invent and modernize housing for my purple Martins. I incorporated features and innovations presented in the Purple Martin Update over the past 20 + years as well as my own ideas, to come up with what I call the ChirpyNest hygienic nest system.
•Starling resistant entry holes (SREH)
•Removable nest trays
•Easy to access compartments
•Single unit housing
•Flow through ventilation
•A screened, dry, raised nesting surface with Superior drainage
•Deep large compartments
•Durable housing that can be used with existing gourd racks.
2017 was my second year using the ChirpyNest system and the first with the single units. The martins love them and I find them to save a lot of time with colony management at mine and two other colonies I manage. Best of all, my colony has rebounded over the last two years.
First ChirpyNest house was a 4 compartments unit that mounted on the hub of the gourd rack.
The single followed in 2016.
The 2018 updated version for vertical gourd rack arms
This adaptation for horizontal arms for future development.
Thanks for Visiting.
