The best time of day for us to measure the colony is between late morning and early afternoon. During this time, most of the adults forage for food away from the colony.
When any of the nestlings reach about 20 days old we cease checking the gourds as they might fly out prematurely. We will not check our gourds any more this season.
Nest monitoring should only be done during good weather as nest checks during bad weather puts stress on adult birds, eggs and nestlings.
Studies show that generally only 70% of the eggs laid actually hatch and once hatched, only about 70% of the nestlings survive and leave the nest.
It’s still hard but we know that the loss f eggs and nestlings is a natural part of martin life and even as careful managers as we are only about 50% of the eggs laid will result in fledged young ...
and only 15% at most of those fledged youngsters will return to the same colony the nest year.
Traveling thousands of miles to their wintering grounds in Brazil and back is an arduous journey with untold number of hazards along the way.
We are proud that from our colonies we fledge about 55-65 youngsters each nesting season and we hope you enjoy watching them and listening to them with us.
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