We had good timing today in doing a Purple Martin nest check. We think we have 6 nests, most of them have 5-6 eggs. One of the first nest that had 6 eggs had babies in them today. There were 5 baby Purple Martins in there. One egg hasn’t hatched yet. From the looks of the babies, they likely just hatched today. Both parents have been bringing them food all day.
Unfortunately I could seem to get a picture with my camera and lens, so Leecy used her camera phone. I’ve been asked if I could put one of the birdcams near the nest, but because the house is metal and there are two rooms per nesting area, I’m not sure I could ever get a camera in there. I can probably get some video using my camera.
Assuming most of these eggs hatch, that’s going to be an awful lot of Purple Martin babies to feed (30-36 babies). It will be interesting to see how things turn out as we are still in a massive drought. I’m not seeing as many Dragonflies as normal, and those tend to be the favorite food of the Martins. I wonder if I can train the Purple Martins to catch crickets in the air like I saw in a YouTube video awhile back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3nnjMA6MvM)?
.jpg "Five Purple Martin Babies Day One")
- Five Purple Martin Babies Day One
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by texdr
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