I wanted to get down my thoughts on being a Purple Martin landlord for 3 years now. As usual, it’s been a great experience, and each year has been more successful than the previous year. The first year the Purple Martin house was located a little closer to the pool and it seemed like we…
Butterfly And Wildlife Gardening And Photography
Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Category Archives: Purple Martin Update: As of Saturday at 9:00 am, Lil Buddy is not in his nest. Hopefully the process that I did below helped him to fledge. I guess today is day 2 of my attempt to rescue/rehab this baby Purple Martin. I’m calling him “Lil Buddy.” I’ll share with you the full story and intersperse it…  I’ll try to be brief about this, mainly because I’m exhausted. Our last (and living) Purple Martin baby made an unsuccessful attempt to fledge the nest yesterday. When I got home in the evening the neighborhood kids came to my front door to tell me there was a baby bird in my front yard (all… We had a terrible day in our Purple Martin Colony today. I’ll describe what happened, and if anyone has any ideas as to the cause, please leave a comment or send me an email. In our Colony, we had one nest with 4 babies, and one nest with a near fledgling (with the bird we…  We have 5 Purple Martin babies who have not yet left the nest. Actually, 4 are in one nest, and one appears to be a fledgling. I say “appears” because when I was looking out the backyard window, I saw something that looked like a little mouse near the garden. When I looked a little…  It’s been a real challenge lately of finding any Butterflies or Wildlife to take pictures of. In fact, I haven’t seen any Butterflies lately. When all else fails, there’s always the reliable Purple Martins. I decided to do a nest check today as I know there are some babies in the Martin House. I’ve done…  The Purple Martin colony got a little scare early this morning. I woke up early to take some video shots of the Purple Martin Colony and immediately looked out the window to see a Hawk (not sure what kind) sitting on the rocks around the pool. I quickly grabbed the camera, but I couldn’t find… I have a really neat video to share for those that are interested. I combined several video clips to make one movie. In this movie, you can see the baby bird “Melvin” as Leecy calls him make his first attempts to move around the nest. He then hears his mother’s tweets for the first time. …  It’s been a while since I’ve woken up early in the morning to take pictures. Even at 7 am (I’m complaining about the lack of rain and heat again) it’s hot and humid. While I was outside and drinking my Latte, I took some pictures and videos of the Purple Martins. The overriding theme for…  Can you tell how I’m feeling today based on my posts? Yep, I’m in the mood to really complain about the lack of rain and this baking heat. It’s becoming a struggle to keep the plants adequately watered, the pond filled with water, the pool, etc. Even the birds are getting really hot today and… It’s day 27 for the Purple Martin babies in nest one, and I’m happy to report they all are now fledglings! I actually have some video of the babies leaving the nest and taking their first flight, but the BirdCam videos are not that clear so I don’t know how entertaining it would be to…  I’ve got a big update today on all the Purple Martin nesting activity so I’ll try and make it brief. As I’ve mentioned previously, I really wanted to clean out nest one since it was so dirty. Today I decided to actually do it in the hopes that I wouldn’t do anything wrong. Since I’m…  It’s now day 23 for the Purple Martin babies in nest one. They’re starting to sound like real Purple Martin’s in their chirps to the parents. They are also beginning to explore the outside world by peering out of their nest. I imagine the room inside the nest is getting a bit cramped. That still…  The Purple Martin parents are working full time feeding their young. One thing I’ve noticed this year compared to previous years, is that the insects are smaller. I haven’t seen them bring many Dragonflies which has been their favorite food in years past. This year the most common insect seem to be Grasshoppers which the…  Well it’s roughly day 21 for the Purple Martin babies in nest one. According to the Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA) the babies should fledge around 26-30 days from when they hatched. So perhaps another week, and these babies will begin their journey to the outside world. There’s something I’ve been thinking about but I… |
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