Sad day for the 4 remaining Purple Martin Babies.
When I was letting the dogs out I noticed one of the baby Purple Martins on the pool decking just sitting there. When I scooped him up, it was pretty clear something was wrong.
I called Leecy to come out and help me. She tried to feed him some crushed, moist fruit, which it did eat, but the bird was really weak.
.jpg "Leecy Feeding Purple Martin")
Leecy Feeding Purple Martin
If you look at the bird’s eye in the picture above, it appears it had some type of disease; we suspect Avian Pox.
I remember seeing this bird in the Martin House the other day. I remember its eye look closed, but I just attributed it to the heat of the day.
In the two remaining pictures, you can see pretty clearly this bird was sick.
.jpg "Left Side Of Purple Martin With Avian Pox")
Left Side Of Purple Martin With Avian Pox
Right Side Of Purple Martin With Avian Pox
Although Leecy tried her best to rehydrate the bird and give it some food, in the end, the bird didn’t make it.
Leecy said a little prayer for the bird on his journey to the heavens.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only death today of the Purple Martin babies.
Because this baby likely had avian pox, I wanted to check on the remaining 3 birds.
I opened the one nest, and that bird looked fine and healthy. I open the next door, and one baby was dead. The other baby in the same room appeared to be okay. So of the original 4, two of them passed away today.
On the bright side, this has been the most successful breeding season for the Purple Martins that visit us. Of the 14 babies that we counted, all survived but 2 so far. All but the remaining 2 have flying happily for a few weeks now.
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by texdr
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