Tree Swallows Return to SW Ohio

Just as I was e-mailing someone, saying I hadn't seen a Tree Swallow at home yet this spring, look who shows up.


The light was perfect to catch the iridescence of their feathers, and the 70-300 mm zoom lens on my new camera allowed me to get really close.

Of course, it helps that these birds seem to know me and were very comfortable with my presence.

"Oh, it's you again."

But, the sweet bonus happened when I downloaded my memory stick to find I had captured this shot:

Gotta love that motor drive!

Nest Check, June 15, 2008

Cavity nesting birds are doing well, for the most part. Weather has been cooperative, and the insect population is up. Cicadas are a good food for the adult martins, but too big for the babies or for swallows and bluebirds, I would imagine.

The 4 Tree Swallow nestlings are 14 days old and hanging out of the front door, taking their first look at the world. I approach cautiously and don't get too close, for fear of spooking them out of their safe home too soon. They will fledge sometime this week.


The 3 Eastern Bluebirds are 8 days old today. This isn't the greatest photo of a bluebird nestling, but you do get a good look at the emerging feathers.


Several Purple Martin nests have hatched in the last 2 days. I currently have 19 young between the ages of 1 day and 12 days old, and 32 eggs. Here is a look into Gourd #21, which contains 5 newly hatched martins.


Adult Purple Martins are 8 inches long. The chicks come out of an egg smaller than a quarter, and have to reach their adult size in one month. Here is a photo of two halves of an egg from the hatchlings in #21.

It is rare that I find the shells, and especially rare to find both halves of one, as the adults usually either eat the shells for the calcium they contain, or discard them far away to discourage predators.

On the down side, I seem to be having more egg losses than normal. I had 1 infertile egg in the Tree Swallow nest and 2 bad eggs in the bluebird nest, one that she rejected and one that didn't hatch. Among the Purple Martins, egg losses are always higher than with my other cavity nesters, but I think this year is worse than last. I have lost at least 12 eggs to date - 5 pecked by House Sparrows and 7 to damage, infertility, or eggs that were lost (I think) during high winds in a thunderstorm.

This is my first attempt at uploading video. I thought you might like to experience a bit of what I go through during a nest check. This is about 65 seconds of me standing under the gourd rack after a nest check. I have just raised it, and the adult birds are returning to their homes. [Please ignore the paint peeling from my natural gourds. I put off doing my cleaning and repainting chores until it was too late.]




Unfortunately, I didn't capture the times when I was dive-bombed by martins. If you have ever been dive-bombed by a Tree Swallow, multiply the effect times 10 and you can begin to appreciate what it feels like to have an 8 inch martin swooping toward you at what seems like 90 miles a hour. The final "SQUAWK!" as the bird pulls up only centimeters from your head is enough to make you shiver. Imagine what it must be like to be a bird and have a peregrine diving toward you!

Babies, part 2

Has it only been 5 days since we last looked in the nest boxes? I guess so, but you couldn't tell it by how fast my babies grow.

Compare these photos to the baby bird pictures seen here:

Eastern Bluebirds, 5 days old, in the nest

and in hand.

Purple Martin chick, 11 days old

Compare the development of the above 11 day old Purple Martin with this 11 day old Tree Swallow:

Look at all those feathers! This box was full of fine white powder from the shafts of the pin feathers breaking open. Not so oogly now, eh sis?

nest box full of Tree Swallows

This will be the last time I can handle them. Tree Swallows fledge in 16 to 24 days, average about 20 days, which is similar to bluebirds (16 to 21 days) so I use the same rule of not opening the next box after the 12th day. Don't want to cause premature fledging, do we?

This guy wants to fly already!

Oh, and the "surprise" martin nest, the one with the mud dam nearly filling up the 6"x6" aluminum compartment? It has 2 eggs today. Woo-hoo!

Babies

My back yard nesting boxes are full of eggs and babies. Here are a few images from this weekend.

One day old bluebird

6 day old tree swallow

6 day old purple martin

Despite the successes, I am having some unexplained losses. Of 5 tree swallow eggs, 4 hatched, one was infertile. Of 5 bluebird eggs in this second clutch, she rejected one and only 3 of the remaining 4 hatched. This is odd for me. I usually have 100% hatching rate in bluebirds.

In the purple martin department, there are currently 10 nests with eggs. I have lost 7 eggs from various nests. Two were blown out during the bad storms, and others were either damaged or infertile, or have just gone missing.

I have two nests with young; 5 nestlings from 5 eggs in one gourd, and 2 nestlings from a clutch of 4 eggs in another.

There are two nests that I call "bachelor pads." These are spaces occupied by subadult males without a female. The boys have done some minor decorating, but haven't really gone all-out in furnishing their homes.

And then, there is this nest:


This is a small compartment (6"x6") in the metal house, with a round entrance hole. It is on the back side of the bird house, so I can't see it easily from the window, but I think an ASY male has taken it over. The mud dam in front effectively narrows the 2.5" round opening to something approximating my crescent SREH holes, and acts as a way of protecting the contents from starlings and owls. However, despite all this effort, I have yet to see a female associated with this compartment. It is unusual for males to do more than initiate the nesting effort, leaving the bulk of the work to the females, so there could be a lady living here. Time will tell, and I keep checking for eggs.

Nest Check, June 1, 2008

Things are really hopping in the cavity nesting department right now. The baby Tree Swallows hatched today - well, 4 of the 5 eggs did, anyway.

(Sorry about the flash in this photo - bad idea)

Looking back at my photo of the 5 eggs from May 22, I notice that one is slightly off color.


As of late morning, one egg has yet to hatch. I wonder if that discolored one is infertile. I can only wait and watch.

In the bluebird nest, the rejected egg is still in the same place. Waiting to see about this one, too. They are due to hatch next Saturday or Sunday.

In the martin nest, 21 new eggs have been laid in the last 3 days! I now have 12 nests with eggs, including Mr. & Mrs. #13, who had their clutch of 4 eggs destroyed by house sparrows on May 20 or 21. They have renested, and have 3 new eggs as of today.

To date, we have a total of 47 eggs. Two nests, one of 4 eggs and one of 5, are due to hatch tomorrow, and and three nests have clutches just beginning. Fledging is going to be spread out over a couple of weeks, the way it looks.


Occupants of this nest decided to add seed pods from the redbud tree, as well as the more traditional green leaves, to their nest of 5 eggs in a Super Gourd.

We found a surprise baby, too. While I was photographing the tree swallows, the dogs were messing around in a weedy spot in my yard and I heard rustling in the grass and the squeal of a mammal being attacked. I was able to call the girls off before they hurt whatever it was, and put them on a "Down-Stay" while I went to check on it. I expected to find a baby bunny, but instead, this is what looked back at me.


What a quandary! I don't really want groundhogs living in my yard, but I can't let the dogs kill this little baby, either.

Rejected, Protected

Just when I think I know everything there is to know about bluebirding, I learn something new. Today, for the third time in a row, when I opened the front of the nest box I was greeted with this image:


The first time I saw an egg out of the nest cup and up against the front panel of the box, I thought it must have been jostled out by mistake, and I gently rolled it back into place. The second time, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with the egg and it was being rejected, but I erred on the side of caution, and replaced it into the nest. The third time, it was obvious that Mama Bluebird doesn't want this egg for some reason.

This is the first time in 15 years I have seen a bluebird reject an egg. I haven't removed it from the box, just in case, but I highly doubt it will hatch. How does she know?

These are the times I wish I had a nest cam, to watch what was going on inside the box. I imagine Mama B struggling mightily to move this object up and out of the nest. "I told you - umph, ha, oof - that I don't want - erg, hmmm, aah - this thing - huff, puff - in my - ooh, ow - nest. Now, stay out!"

On the other hand, Mrs. Tree Swallow has filled her nest with so many feathers, you can't see anything else. Just 9 days ago, I captured this image:

Today, this is my view:

Baby Tree Swallows, are you in there?

Purple and Blue All Over

I spent some time sitting quietly under an apple tree today, watching all the action going on at the various nest boxes and gourds. The main goal was to sort out the ages and sexes of the martins nesting in the gourd rack. I am trying to figure out how many are ASY (After Second Year) birds and how many are SY (Second Year.) There were too many distractions to get a complete count, but I did get some photos to help you see the differences.

[Aside: The year the young are hatched and fledge is their Hatch Year. They migrate to South America for the winter, where they molt, and return the next year as subadult or SY birds. This is their second summer, or their first breeding season, and they are basically teenagers. They migrate again that fall and acquire their adult plumage, returning as adult or ASY birds.]


This is an ASY, or adult male Purple Martin. He's the easiest to sex and age - he's purple all over. You can see how the species got its common name. Isn't he gorgeous?


I have seen at least 3 ASY males so far this year, maybe more. (Won't everybody just line up and sit still for a head count, please?) Last year's colony was started by one ASY male, so at least two of these guys are probably my SY's from last year, all grown up and come back home from South America.

This is an ASY female. She has some purplish coloration on her head and back, but her breast and belly are pearl gray.


Another ASY female. An SY female would have a whiter breast, but the big key to distinguishing subadult from adult females is the undertail coverts (feathers under the tail.)


Here is a close-up of the undertail coverts in this ASY female. In an adult female, the feathers have a gray center. In a SY female, they would be all white. I haven't seen an SY female yet, so I don't have a photo of one for comparison.


An SY male. Subadult males look an awful lot like adult females, which is one reason why my census is going so slowly. Look for a dark throat and irregular purple blotches on the breast and/or belly to ID a subbie male. If you can hear one sing, that clinches the ID, since females don't sing, but there is a lot of noise in a martin colony, and it can be hard to tell who the songster is.


I have been a bit lax in my martineering duties so far this spring, and today was my first complete nest check. Imagine my surprise to find that all 12 of my main gourds have nests and three of those have eggs!

Martin nest.

Notice the mud dam in front of the nest cup, which is lined with green leaves. I find martins make these barriers in the larger plastic Super Gourds.

Martin nest with 5 eggs in a natural gourd.

I also have a pair of martins interested in a Super Gourd that is hung on a shepherd's crook (the one that was intended for tree swallows and where I trapped a starling.) I'm surprised they would choose to nest so low, but all the prime spots are taken. I have seen 3 different martins exploring the aluminum house, but as far as I can tell these are all bachelor subbie males.

[Aside: Most colonies end up with extra SY males. These boys hang around the colony, trying to usurp already attached females. Juvenile males are the same all over the animal kingdom, always causing trouble.]

The Tree Swallow couple has five eggs.

This is the best look I can give you of the female.

The male isn't shy about being photographed, though.

The bluebird couple has a new nest, which looks to be nearly complete.

I haven't seen the fledglings from the first clutch yet, but I got some great pictures of Papa today.

Please indulge my bluebird addiction:

One last photo of an adult male Purple Martin.

And, for the ultimate in nestbox cams, go here to see the Columbus, Ohio, peregrine falcons. Live streaming video of Orville and Scout's clutch of 4 babies.

Cavity Nesting News

Good and bad news in the cavity nesting world: The bad news is that I came home from Magee Marsh to find a starling had built a nest in a Super Gourd, a plastic gourd designed for Purple Martins. This one was hung low on a shepherd's crook for the Tree Swallows, not high on the raised rack for the martins.

Starlings just can't resist the big round entry hole and roomy interiors of these gourds, although in retrospect, I'm glad she picked this empty gourd, and not one that the martins are using. She had filled it to bursting with fresh and dried grasses in 2 or 3 days.


This is probably the same bird that I just evicted (twice) from a modified apartment in the aluminum house, one where I had taken out a dividing wall to create a 6" x 12" room instead of the standard 6" cube. Again, the round hole and larger space is very attractive to starlings. After the second eviction, when I also removed an egg, I changed the front doors from 2.5" round holes to the starling resistant crescents I have in my natural gourds, and Ms. Starling couldn't get in to finish her clutch.

I suspect that's why the rush to move into the gourd; she had eggs to lay. I tossed one out the day I got back. Here's another one:

And here it is in my hand and close-up:

Martineers debate over the best way to house their birds. Round holes are easier for martins to negotiate, and are more familiar, so many people are reluctant to try starling-resistant entry holes (SREH.) Bigger rooms allows for bigger clutches, but attract starlings, which not only compete with martins for space, but which will break eggs, kill nestlings, and even kill adults, if possible. Right after the second eviction, when a martin couple was checking out the aluminum house with the SREH, I watched a starling attack the male martin as it was wriggling its way out of the compartment. Just as I was about to charge outside and scare off the starling, other martins saved the day and the male flew off unharmed.

Based on my (limited) experience, I am a believer in larger rooms or gourds and SREH. I do have 5 round holed gourds, four hung for the martins to give them a choice, and this one, which has now become a trap box for starlings. This particular bird won't need any more eviction notices.

In the Good News department, the Tree Swallows are laying their eggs, using a wooden nest box that had been my sparrow trap box.

Day One was Monday,

when this little pearl surprised me. I didn't even think the nest was complete, but I guess Mother knows best when it comes to egg-laying.

Today, I walked up to the nest box to do a morning check, and followed all the same steps I do with my bluebirds. I give a low whistle, to warn Mama that I am approaching the box, at which point she usually flies out. I then tap on the side of the box before I open it, in case she didn't hear me. I did all that with the Tree Swallow box this morning, and when I opened it up, she was sitting tight and wouldn't move. I closed the box up and checked it this evening:

Beautiful!

Edit: Update 5/15 - second bluebird nest is underway as of today.